


I'm In Love

by chamel



Series: Hanging On For Dear Life: Songs of Cara Dune & Din Djarin [3]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Alternative Perspective, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Awkward Conversations, Awkwardness, Bisexual Din Djarin, Bisexual Male Character, Cara in a dress, Cooking, Din is thirsty, Dinner, F/M, Feelings, Flashbacks, Flirting, Fluff and Smut, Heartbreak, Idiots in Love, Jealousy, Kissing, Little Black Dress, M/M, Multi, OT3, Pillow & Blanket Forts, Pining, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Smut, Threesome - F/M/M, Trust, aren't we all, bad at feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:21:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24842206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chamel/pseuds/chamel
Summary: Din returns to Nevarro to find Cara in the arms of another man, but even after he wins her back things don't go exactly as he expected.orThe events ofDear Lifetold from the perspective of Din, and what happens thereafter.
Relationships: Cara Dune/Original Character(s), Cara Dune/The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Cara Dune/The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Original Male Character(s), The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Original Character(s)
Series: Hanging On For Dear Life: Songs of Cara Dune & Din Djarin [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1781008
Comments: 34
Kudos: 62





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently I cannot resist writing sequels even when I say I'm not going to.
> 
> Honestly you guys loved _Dear Life_ so much, and I fell in love with the story too, that I couldn't resist. There are a number of requests from the comments that have been folded into this work. I've never re-written a story from another perspective, and honestly it is pretty fun.
> 
> Um, yes, I did include _that tag_ *cough*Lady_Vibeke*cough*, although it will take a couple of chapters and I am making no grand promises. 😆 (Side note I think this might be the only work in the tag lol)
> 
> Finally, the end of this chapter is one of the angstier things I think I've ever written, but at least you guys know how it's gonna turn out for poor Din.
> 
> ETA: For Father's Day I recommend you go back and read [The Richest Man](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24109324), which, incidentally, I recently updated so that it actually is a part of the "Do You Want to Know a Secret?" storyline.

_You’re the only one who’s ever really known me,_  
_where it really hurts_  
_You bring me to my knees and you show me_  
_Mmmm you’re such a flirt_

More than once he almost changed his mind. This was a monumentally stupid idea by any measure, and he was just asking to get his heart broken. She’d stayed behind for a reason, and he was pretty sure that at least part of it was that she wasn’t interested in traveling with them. Who could blame her? No doubt she had no desire to be saddled with a strange kid and a man whose face she couldn’t see.

Every time, though, some small nagging voice inside of him said, _What if_? What if she did feel it too, this unspoken attraction between them, the desire thinly veiled by the pretense of a professional relationship? Surely her shameless flirting with him—on Sorgan, on the trip to Nevarro—hadn’t meant _nothing_. Of course there was a distinct chance that he was reading far too much into this and he was going to make a fool of himself.

He was nothing if not a man conflicted.

In the end, he’d told Karga he was coming, so that alone was enough to keep him from canceling the navigation. He’d been delayed by a last minute repair, which he almost convinced himself was a sign that he shouldn’t go, but was underway now. He’d be there in a couple of hours.

If he had a plan, it was changing constantly. Go to the cantina, certainly, but beyond that it was as nebulous as the cloud of cosmic dust he had flown through the other day. What would he do if she was there? What would he do if she _wasn’t_?

Exhaustion weighed on him, and he knew he should try to get some sleep, but he also knew that if he went down to lay in bed he would stare at the ceiling. So he sat in the cockpit as the kid napped behind him on the jump seat, trying to think of anything except the woman he was crossing the galaxy for.

That wasn’t possible, though. He’d tried to forget her for months without success, but everything had come crashing down around him when he had gotten himself into a dire situation on his last job. He’d accepted what he thought would be a simple job for decent pay: find a young man who’d gone missing, and whose parents very much wanted him back. By all accounts the boy was an upstanding citizen and not involved in any dangerous activity.

So when Din found himself hanging by one hand from a cliff, he was surprised as much as anyone. Apparently he’d managed to stumble into a human smuggling operation run by some Imps, trying to ‘recruit’ new stormtroopers. He’d rattled their camp and broke a bunch of locks, but the two Imps guarding the transport had retaliated quickly, forcing him backward toward the rim of a large canyon. It was his ill luck that the edge had given way.

Of course he hadn’t worn his jetpack—well, he hadn’t figured he would need to fly off a cliff face—and if he was honest with himself it didn’t look good. His hand was aching, and he couldn’t find a toehold in the crumbly rock face. He was probably going to die here. His first thought had been of the kid, who he’d left in the care of the parents of the kidnapped boy. Would they care for him? Love him? Would he be safe?

His second thought, though, had been of Cara. He felt a deep, aching dread that he’d never see her again. Never hear her laugh, or spar with her, or, or…

Or tell her how he really felt about her.

*

_Her body slammed into him forcefully, throwing him off balance and crashing toward the ground. If there was something that was certain about sparring with Cara, it was that she was going to get the drop on him eventually. He knew where this was going: she was about to pin him, and at this point he was tired enough that he was going to have to tap out._

_He braced himself for contact with the floor of the cargo bay. The metal panels were not fun to land on—certainly less so than the grassy ground on Sorgan—but he had no mats. Never needed them, traveling by himself. After their first session on the Razor Crest he made a mental note that he might need to invest in some nice shock-absorbant foam… if, perhaps, she might decide to travel with him for a while._

_This time, his body contacted the ground oddly, sending a jolting pain through his shoulder and—more distressingly—knocking his helmet upward. His arms, which she’d pinned, were instantaneously set free even as she landed on top of him, unable to stop her own momentum. He caught the wayward helmet before it could even reveal his chin._

_“I didn’t see anything!” she said in a rush._

_She was sitting on top of him, her eyes clenched tightly shut_ and _her hands covering them. He had a brief, devious thought that it would be easy to throw her at this point, but that would hardly be honorable. Plus, he was wiped. He reached out to grab one of her arms and pull it down off her face._

_“It’s ok, helmet’s in place,” he huffed, breathing heavily._

_One eye cracked open theatrically as she peeked through the fingers of the other hand. When she was satisfied that he wasn’t exposed, she grinned at him and dropped her hands down to immediately pin his. Well, the brief thought of retaliation was moot now._

_“Thought I knocked your can off,” she said through deep breaths._

_“Almost,” he admitted. “Thanks for letting my arms go. Temporarily.”_

_Cara beamed triumphantly at him, and all at once he was overcome with how incredibly beautiful she was. Sweaty and red-faced from the exertion of the fight, she was practically glowing. Cara was a friend, nothing more, but that didn’t stop his chest from tightening traitorously._

_“That wouldn’t have been a fair fight,” she pointed out. “I always fight fair.”  
  
Din snorted at that. Under a loose definition of ‘fair’, perhaps. “If you fought fair, I wouldn’t end up on my back every time.”_

_Her lips twisted wickedly, then, and he knew he’d left the door open for something. “Don’t be a sore loser. Plus, I thought you liked it when I ended up on top.”_

_To accentuate her point she rocked her hips subtlely on top of his abdomen, causing his eyes to practically roll back in his head. He groaned, hoping it came out more exhasperated than aroused._

_“Aww, you’re blushing,” she teased._

_“How can you…?” he started, looking at her in surprise._

_She shrugged before he could finish. “I can just tell.”_

_Mercifully, she climbed off him and offered a hand of assistance to help him off the ground. He accepted gratefully, but winced as she pulled him up: that shoulder was going to be sore for a few days._

_“That sounds like it hurts,” she commented. She palpated the muscles gently, her fingers hot through his thin workout shirt. “You gonna let me massage it later so it doesn’t tighten up, or am I gonna have to tie you down?”_

*

The memory must have only lasted seconds, though he had felt lost in it. His hand had somehow still been gripping the cliff when a rope fell down onto him, ringing softly as it bounced off his helmet. He’d looked up to see the kid he’d been hired to protect poking his head over the edge of the cliff.

“I hope you can climb up,” the kid had said, “because we can’t haul you.”

Din had just grunted and grabbed hold of the rope. When he got to the top he found that somehow in the commotion the kids he had freed had overwhelmed the guards and managed to tie them up. They had stood in a tight cluster, then, watching him cautiously. The boy he’d been hired to find was one of the oldest, perhaps in his late teens. He’d been momentarily overwhelmed by the idea that he’d saved these kids, but unlike the time he’d been saved he could probably reunite most of them with their families. It had taken him at least a week of searching, but he’d found them all.

The day he’d almost died on that cliff was the day that Din had made the decision to return to Nevarro. All his carefully built dams broke and his mind was flooded with thoughts of her: memories, fantasies, everything. And the more that he thought about her, the more he realized just how much she meant to him. No one had ever treated him like Cara did; no one had ever really _seen_ him the way she seemed to, as if the helmet wasn’t even there.

After he had finally returned all of the kids he sent a message to Greef saying that he was coming. He had not asked if Cara was still there—if she wasn’t, he figured Greef would know better than anyone where she might have gone—but Karga had closed his reply with ‘Cara and I will be glad to see you again.’

The elation he had felt initially had faded and now had seemingly been replaced with a constant low-grade anxiety about the whole operation. It kept him up at night, running possible scenerios in his head that more than likely would never come to pass. Trying to sleep was to guarantee that he wouldn’t.

He turned in his chair and looked down at the kid, who was still dozing soundly. Lucky bastard. Turning back to his controls, he checked a few settings, but nothing had changed. Still in hyperspace, still en route. Maybe he would just rest his eyes for a minute.

*

_“After that training session, I need a spotchka or seven,” she groaned, stretching her shoulders as they walked back to the huts._

_“What’s the matter, Dune? Villagers giving you a hard time?”_

_Cara disappeared into her hut and he stopped on the porch, waiting for her to re-emerge. He knew she would; she always did, at the end of the day. Not typically with two opened bottles of spotchka in hand, though, as she had now._

_“That’s tough talk coming from a guy who was on projectile weapons duty today,” she said, holding a bottle out to him as she took a swig of hers._

_He looked down at the bottle and back up at her, keenly aware she couldn’t see his questioning expression. “I can’t drink that out here.”_

_“I know,” she replied, looking at him like he was stupid. “Sit on the other side of the curtain and we can drink together.”_

_It was a simple solution, really, obvious on the face of it. So why it had taken either of them three days to come up with it was a mystery. He took the bottle from her but hesitated again._

_“This is your place…”_

_Cara smirked at him. “There’s no bras hanging around, I promise. My place is yours. Unless,” she added, brow furrowing slightly, “it’s not allowed?”  
  
Sometimes he wondered what she must think of him, when he did things like this. He was of course allowed to enter someone else’s sleeping quarters, so why had he stalled? A voice deep inside him mumbled something about fear of intimacy, but he ignored it._

_“No, it’s fine,” he replied. “Thanks.”_

_He entered the dim hut and pulled the curtain over the door behind him. Locating a chair, he pulled it across the room and set it up on the other side of the thatched wall from where Cara always sat, just to the right of the doorway. Light streamed in through the cracks between the reeds making up the wall, and if he squinted he could see her outline._

_Without his helmet his senses always felt slightly overwhelmed at first, and it was so here: he was assaulted by the smell of her, a soft floral overlaying the smell of sweat and leather and blaster oil. He heard her shift quietly on the other side of the wall and let his head drop back against it. After a moment he felt a soft thud as she did the same. It was as close as he had been to another person without his helmet on in a long time. For some unknown reason, he told her this._

_She was silent for a minute, and he suddenly wondered if this was how everyone felt when they talked to him. Without being able to read her face, he worried that he’d made a mistake, revealed too much. Maybe that’s why people seemed to accidentally reveal too much to him all the time. At least when he talked to other Mandalorians he knew they all were relying on their finely tuned body language reading skills._

_“Like, how long are we talking about? Since you put the helmet on in the first place?” she said finally, her voice curious._

_“No,” he answered. “It’s been a few years since I’ve been, uh, romantically involved. Not that I was implying anything…”_

_Oh good grief, he really put his foot in it now. He took a long pull of his spotchka, hoping to forget the last few minutes. Behind him, he heard Cara snort in laughter._

_“Don’t worry about it, loverboy. I’m pretty sure Omera would knife me if I tried to step in on her game.”_

_He didn’t know how to respond to that._ Definitely _not with his first impulse, which was to say that he hoped Cara would try anyway. Undoubtedly he’d manage to make a larger fool of himself than he already had. Instead, he elected to say nothing._

_“So Mandalorians do take off the helmet for romantic partners?” she asked._

_“It’s personal. Some do, some don’t. Your partner still doesn’t see your face, though.”_

_“How does that work?”_

_“Blindfolds, darkness. If you really trust someone, just closing their eyes.”  
  
“Have you ever trusted someone like that?”_

_He hesitated, worrying he was divulging too much again. “No,” he admitted, taking another swig. “I had a bad experience with someone trying to sneak a look.”_

_“What a bitch!” Cara exclaimed. The wall rattled softly as something—probably her fist—thudded against it. “I can’t imagine doing something like that,” she added vehemently under her breath. He had a suspicion that he was not supposed to hear it._

_“Yeah,” he agreed in a sigh, pretending to ignore her second statement. “She was, in the end.”_

_He swallowed the rest of his spotchka and set the empty bottle on the floor next to him. I clunked hollowly as it hit the wood._

_“Sounds like you need another,” she commented wryly. “There are some in the cooler. Grab me one too?”_

_“I probably shouldn’t…”  
  
“Well grab me one and keep me company, then?”  
  
He couldn’t say no to that, and what the hell, spotchka wasn’t very alcoholic and another bottle wasn’t going to put him under the table. The bottles clinked softly when he pulled them out of the small cooler in the back of the hut. When he returned to the door he stuck his hand through and she grabbed the bottle, her gloved fingers lingering ever so slightly on his as she did._

_“So what’s your preference?” she asked when they'd settled into their seats again._

_“Huh?”_

_“You said the helmet thing was personal preference.”_

_“Oh,” he replied, momentarily tongue tied. “Uh, like I said, it’s been a while.”_

_“That’s fine, you don’t have to say if you don’t want to.”_

_From some people, the statement would have sounded sarcastic, like a dare. Not her, though. Her voice was genuine, understanding. He was a private person, and this was definitely not the type conversation he usually engaged in. Still, the discomfort he typically felt when people started getting curious about his way of life was far less than usual; maker help him, he_ wanted _to tell her. That was a truly terrible idea, though._

_“Darkness, usually,” he heard himself mumble._

_“Too bad,” she replied, her voice playful, “blindfold sounded kinda fun.”_

*

A proximity sensor chirped at him as they flew past another ship in the hyperspace lane, yanking him from the depths of his dream. He shook his head groggily, wondering how long he’d been out. The nav system indicated that they were nearly to Nevarro, so it had been an hour at least. Behind him the kid cooed softly and he swiveled to see the small creature regarding him curiously.

“How long have you been awake?” he asked through a yawn.

The kid burbled at him in answer, and Din nodded. Checking the nav again quickly, he pushed himself out of the chair and stepped toward the ladder. If he was going to be in Nevarro in less than an hour he desperately needed some caf first.

By some miracle, he felt reasonably awake by the time he dropped the Razor Crest onto the north landing field. His nap on the bridge must have done more for him than he originally thought. The sun was already dipping below the horizon, bathing the rocks and sand in a brillant orange hue reminiscent of the molten lava that flowed nearby.

He liked the north landing field because it was more isolated and less used, but it was a decent walk to the cantina. The kid stood at his feet at the top of the ramp, looking up at the Mandalorian as his ears twitched excitedly. He knew this place, and despite the bad things that had happened here, he seemed like he knew what they were here for now. Din knew he’d want to walk into town on his own, and at this moment the slow pace didn’t seem so bad. The sooner they got there, the sooner he’d have to say what he came to say, and that was terrifying.

It was twilight when they got to the cantina. The sounds of laughter, yelling, and clinking glasses filtered out through the windows. He paused on the doorstep, not sure if he was ready for this, but the kid kept going and he had no choice but to follow.

He spotted Greef immediately, at his usual table, arguing with someone over a bounty. His eyes cast around the room but he didn’t see her. This was the possibility that he had prepared for least. He looked again, scrutinizing each patron thoroughly, but no. He made a valiant effort to ignore the feeling of his heart sinking into his stomach.

“Long time no see, Mando,” Karga said from beside him.

Din narrowly avoided jumping in surprise, so focused had he been on the room. The older man was much as he had been when they’d left months ago, maybe with a new wrinkle or two on his forehead. Or perhaps that was just the way he was regarding the Mandalorian at that moment, his brow creased and lips pressed into a subtle, wry smile.

“If you’re looking for her, she said she’d be back soon.”

“Oh,” Din replied, trying to seem as if he hadn’t been. “Yeah, thanks.”

“You would show up right after she left. Hung around this place all day waiting for you.”

Din blinked several times behind his helmet, staring off across the room, not sure he’d heard the ex-magistrate correctly. “She did?” he muttered, quiet enough that Greef did not seem to pick it up past the dull roar in the cantina.

“I’ve got some more business to attend to, but why don’t you take a seat. I’ll send someone over with some food for the kid.” Greef clapped him on the shoulder firmly, shocking the Mandalorian out of his reverie.

He did not sit facing the door. No, he wasn’t going to watch the entrance sullenly, like a puppy waiting for its master to come home. Instead he watched the kid slurp his soup happily, looking over his shoulder every time the door opened. After a while he stopped that, too. Maybe he would wait for her to come to him.

The door opened again and abruptly the room fell silent apart from low, awed whispers. He turned, unable to resist, and felt his jaw hit the floor. At first he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him, that it was just some raven-haired, drop dead gorgeous woman who happened to _look_ like Cara. The tattooed band around her upper arm and the small insignia on her cheek, no more than a spot at this distance, were unmistakable, though.

She was wearing a tight black dress that hugged her curves and stopped mid-thigh, revealing her toned, shapely legs. The inner curves of her breasts peeked out tantiizingly through the dramatic, plunging neckline that nearly made it to her navel before it stopped. Her lips, emphasized in a bold red, were curled into a forbidding scowl.

He couldn’t help but smile at that, despite his general state of shock.

After hesitating only a moment she headed straight for the bar on a path that would take her by his table. From her bearing he realized that in the hubbub she hadn’t seen him. He briefly considered letting her pass, but quickly dismissed the idea as idiotic. He came to see her, he would see her. As she made to blow by the table he stood up into her path.

“Mando,” she said, her voice tight and her eyes wide. He saw her swallow hard. “Greef said you were coming.”

“Cara,” he replied, struggling to keep his voice low and even. “You look… different.”

It was the understatement of the century, and it had the desired effect. She laughed as she pushed past him toward the bar and he followed, not even trying to resist appreciating how amazing her ass looked in the dress. Even if she turned around, she couldn’t see his face.

“Make it a double,” she called to the bartender.

She turned halfway back toward Din and leaned on the bar with one elbow. The position pushed her left breast to the side, bulging dangerously past the edge of the neckline. There was no controlling the strangled sound that escaped his lips then; he was lucky the sight didn’t send him into a coma immediately. She quickly looked down, saw what she was doing, and straightened, smoothing imaginary creases off the front of the dress like it wasn’t practically glued to her body. He was dimly aware that the bartender delivered her drink and she threw it back in one go and slammed the glass back on the bar.

Din had thought of things he was going to say to her, he really had. What they had been was, at this moment, a mystery to him. His mouth was dry and his throat tight. Cara had always been stunningly gorgeous, but this was just beyond his wildest imagination. At this point the only thing that could be sexier were if she were naked, and honestly he wasn’t even sure about that. He _was_ pretty sure that she had no real comprehension of what the dress was doing for her. Probably she had chosen it because it was black and simple.

“What brings you back to this shithole?” she asked, glancing around the room as if looking for someone.

“Low on credits,” he lied.

He definitely had _not_ planned on saying that. Sure, he could always use a few more credits, but that was decidedly not why he was here. But what was he going to say, now? Tell her that he came to profess his love (or something like that) to a woman who was clearly dressed for someone else? As the shock of seeing her in the dress faded, the reality of the situation was crashing down on him. He was too late.

He saw Cara roll her eyes, no doubt misinterpreting his distraction. Only partly misinterpreting, to be fair. He almost didn’t notice the sorry excuse for a human that had slid up next to her at the bar.

“Hey baby,” the guy wheezed. “Can I get you a drink? Or something stronger?”

Cara whirled around, and Din watched as the stranger’s eyes trailed lecherously down her body. He felt heat rise in his face and the roar of blood rushing in his ears dulled the sound in the room. His first impulse was knock the guy flat on his ass, but he bit down on his tongue, fighting the urge. Somehow she didn’t think Cara would actually appreciate the gesture.

“Get lost,” she warned, turning away from him.

“Hey now, give us a smile…”

“You heard what she said,” Din growled, unable to stop himself this time, and the idiot looked at him in surprise.

“Maybe she was talkin’ to you,” the guy sneered. “Maybe she don’t like the idea of fuckin’ a tin can.”

Din almost laughed. If that guy thought the Mandalorian would be offended by such a limp jab, he deserved what was coming to him. Before he could do anything, though, Cara’s fist shot out, catching the guy in the jaw with a crack. He fell to a heap on the ground next to them and she shook her hand out. The conversations, which had picked back up in the cantina, fell silent again.

“Get him out of here,” Greef barked, sending two guys to collect the unconcious body. He turned to the rest of the patrons. “You were all warned.”

This time Din did laugh softly to himself. Apparently at some point he’d missed a vital announcement concerning Cara. Perhaps the idiot had missed it too, to his sorrow. With the interruption cleared, he turned back to woman in front of him, who was currently biting her lower lip in an attempt to bite back a smile. Kriff, if she knew what that did to people. Din took a deep breath, trying to focus.

“I suppose you have a good reason for this…?” he asked, gesturing to her outfit.

She cocked her head at him and smirked. “I have a date, Mando.”

“A… date.”  
  
His words rang hollowly in his helmet. Sure, he’d expected something of the sort, but to hear her say it was more painful than he had guessed. Cara, on a date? She’d given no indication that she was interested in that kind of thing during the weeks they’d spent on Sorgan. A quiet, evil voice inside him said maybe she just wasn’t interested in anyone that was around then.

“Yeah, you know, going out with someone? A prelude to romance?” she teased. “Do Mandalorians do that kinda thing?”

“Yes,” he forced himself to answer, his voice strained. “I didn’t think you were the type…”  
  
“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?” she interrupted.

He couldn’t tell if the outrage in her tone was real or not; it seemed a bit over the top. Nevertheless, he tensed up immediately.

“I didn’t— I’m sorry— I—” he stammered, so wishing for an end to this conversation.

“Relax, Mando, I’m messing with you,” she grinned, shoving him lightly on the shoulder. “I’m not. The type that goes on dates, that is. I’m making up to someone, for last night.”

He didn’t know whether to be happy or sad, at that. On one hand, the date was more of an obligation—not that her dress implied anything of the sort—but on the other, what had happened the previous night to engender such an agreement from her? Din tipped his head at her slightly in question and she swallowed, looking around the room again. Suddenly, her eyes lit up with recognition.

He didn’t want to look, but he couldn’t help himself. The man who had just come into the cantina was tall and lanky, but his bearing spoke to a lean muscularity. He was wearing grey slacks and a matching jacket, which were far too upscale for this establishment. They did, however, seem to fit Cara’s attire.

“My word, but you do look ravishing,” the man said, smiling broadly, as he approached them.

This time, Cara smiled back, and Din’s heart sank. The other man stepped up to Cara and leaned down to kiss her lightly on the cheek, sliding a hand possessively behind her lower back as he did so. Then he straightened and turned toward Din. The corners of his mouth turned down ever so slightly, eyebrows knitting together, before he fixed a smile on his face that didn’t reach his eyes.

“Sorry I’m late. Who’s your friend?”

“Karl, this is Mando,” she said, sounding uncomfortable. “We, uh, fought together.”

“Oh,” Karl replied lightly, “I didn’t know there were many Mandalorians in the rebellion.”

“Not in the rebellion,” Din answered gruffly, unwilling to offer more explanation.

He stared at Karl, and Karl stared back at him, his steely blue eyes narrowing slightly. The other man had short sandy blonde hair with enough curl in it to make it look in a constant state of artful touslement and expressive eyebrows that Din felt sure could be wickedly seductive if used properly. He had no doubt that Karl was an expert. There was no way to deny that Cara’s date was an incredibly attractive man, and debonair in a way Din would never be. The Mandalorian’s eyes dropped to the possessive hand behind Cara’s back, and all at once he felt his heart finally, utterly breaking.

“We should get going, yeah?” Cara broke in, placing a hand on Karl’s chest as she looked up at him. “Don’t want to miss our reservation.”

“Absolutely,” Karl replied through clenched teeth, still staring daggers at Din.

If only Karl knew that he was the one with the high ground here, and Din was the one that felt like he was inexorably being pulled into a pit of quicksand that was compressing his chest until he couldn’t breathe.

Abruptly Karl broke away from the stare and turned toward Cara, sliding his hand behind her head and pulling her into a deep kiss. Din couldn’t take it anymore. He turned away and grabbed hold of the edge of the bar, leaning heavily on it as his head dropped between his shoulders. His world seemed to be crashing down around him. Never in his most vivid nightmares could he have imagined his return going so wrong.

He didn’t know how long he’d been standing there when he heard a soft, concerned coo at his feet. He opened his eyes, not realizing that he’d closed them. The kid looked up at him from the ground, his little wrinkled brow even more wrinkled in worry. One clawed hand gripped his boot and the other reached up toward him.

A sense of calm and clarity slowly washed over Din, though nothing could touch the ache in his chest. He bent down and picked up the small creature. His foundling. His kid. Ok, he’d had his heart broken. But they had each other, and that would be enough.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to split the difference on the retelling and pick up the next morning. If you haven't read [Dear Life](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24645715/chapters/59546971) go do it now because this won't make much sense otherwise.
> 
> This is for sure dedicated to Lady_Vibeke, although I admit I had a lot of fun playing with Karl again.

When he first awoke, Din was sure he was still dreaming. He had to be: there was a warm weight on top of him, far too large to be the kid, and that intoxicating smell he remembered from Sorgan filled the small compartment. More florals, less leather and blaster oil, though. The weight on top of him shifted slightly, but her breathing remained shallow and even

Din knew she wasn’t much of a morning person, and after the previous night he didn’t blame her for sleeping in. He wondered how late it was—after all, he’d been quite sleep-deprived too—but he wasn’t curious enough to make any movements towards getting up. The ship was silent apart from the usual low hum, so either the kid was still asleep or being very quiet. The latter option seemed unlikely but then again the kid never failed to surprise him.

For a long time he just lay there, reveling in the feel of her body pressed against his and the smell of her hair as he buried his face in it. He’d dreamed of this moment for longer than he cared to admit, never really believing it would happen, but it wasn’t until the previous night that he really understood the depth of his feelings for her. He knew she hadn’t heard him when he whispered “I love you” as he pressed a kiss on her head, but that was undoubtely a good thing; he’d been overcome with emotion in the moment and not thinking. He’d tell her again someday, when he knew she was ready.

Eventually he could no longer ignore the pressure in his bladder, and he almsot thought he heard the kid make a sound from the common area of the ship. Carefully he extracted himself from the bed, but Cara was out cold and didn’t stir when he did. When he found his helmet and put it on the room was picked out in shades of green. He stood for another moment, watching her sprawled on her stomach in the bed, before finally left the compartment.

The kid was indeed awake and gnawing on something he’d apparently dug out of one of the cabinet. When Din pried it out of his hands he found it was an old duga root, probably long lost behind some other pantry items, and not at all palatable anymore.

“You don’t want that,” he muttered as he tossed it into the trash and rummaged for a protein bar in one of the kid’s prefered flavors. Not the breakfast of champions, but he had not done a supply run yet and provisions on the ship were few.

The kid cooed happily when Din handed him the unwrapped bar, devouring it with gusto. Then he cocked his head to the side and held up a hand for more.

“Let me see what I can find, ok?” Din told him, trying not to laugh. “We need to buy more food. And I need to brew some caf.”

The response was a disappointed sound and drooped ears, but it was clear the kid understood. Leaving Din behind, he toddled off to go find one of his preferred playthings.

It _was_ quite late, later than Din ever slept in. At least there was caf on the ship. On the trip from Sorgan to Nevarro, the smell of caf brewing in the morning was one of the only things that could pry Cara from her rack. He dumped the grounds in the machine and turned it on, then waited patiently for the soft sounds of brewing and the slow drip of liquid.

After he’d drunk a cup himself, he dug through the cabinets again until he found a packaged cake of some kind. Possibly intended for dessert, probably tastier a week ago, but it looked unspoilt and he knew the kid would devour it anyhow. As if he had some radar for food, the kid suddenly reappeared at Din’s feet again. This time Din lifted him onto the small table and handed over the cake.

He wondered if Cara was awake yet, and how creepy he would seem if he went back into the compartment to wait for her to wake up. He needn’t have worried, though, because when he opened the door to the compartment he immediately saw her eyes shining in the dim light.

He took a step inside and sat down on the side of the bed, putting one hand down on the mattress next to her so he could lean over her. He wanted to do so many things: lay down again, pull her up in an embrace, take off his helmet and kiss her tenderly. These impulses were not assuaged when she stretched in a rather provocative manner, twisting her body underneath him as she grinned mischeviously.

“Finally awake?” he asked, smiling at her antics beneath his helmet.

She yawned. “Is it late?”  
  
“Eh, reasonably,” he shrugged.

“You should have woken me.”

He shook his head and reached forward to squeeze her forearm gently. “I think you needed it.”

A soft smile played on her lips as she looked at his hand, then she covered it with one of hers and trailed her fingers lightly up his arm. He wondered if she could feel the goosebumps she was leaving in her wake.

“Come back to bed?” she said, her voice low and husky.

Din swallowed hard, hoping it wasn’t too obvious. He wanted nothing more, at that moment, but he also didn’t _really_ know what that meant. Come back to lie next to her, or more…? He never realized that even once they’d (mostly) admitted their feelings for one another there would still be so much uncertainty. One thing he could not risk was moving too fast and driving her away.

So, he decided to pretend it was a joke. He chuckled softly, murmuring, “I don’t think that’s a good idea. You know, if we wanted to get anything done today.”

This was apparently an acceptable response because she grinned broadly at him. “What do we have to do?”

“Hmm, well I think you probably have some stuff to get, right?”

“Oh yeah. That’s true,” she replied. She pushed herself into a sitting position and ran a hand through her hair. “I hope you’re not expecting to get these clothes back, because I’m not putting that dress back on.”

The image of Cara in the dress flashed in his mind then, and his mouth was abruptly dry. “Maybe some other time, then,” he heard himself say, surprised at his own boldness.

He laughed when she raised an eyebrow at him, but he wondered if she suspected he was dead serious. Pushing off the bed, he stood to allow her to rise. The clothes he’d given her were old and soft, optimal sleeping wear, but he was happy to relinquish them if that meant she was going to get out of his bed in the mornings.

Din left the small compartment and Cara followed him out toward the small galley where the kid sat, still smashing the cake into his mouth. He cooed through a full mouth when he saw her, his ears twitching happily.

“Yup, she’s going to join us,” Din replied as he rubbed the kid’s head. “Even though I almost messed it up.”

“Hardly,” she scoffed. “I think I won that ‘honor’ handily.”

This might be one of those things that they disagree about forever, he thought. The pot of caf was half empty already, so he set about to making another batch.

“Hey, uh,” Cara added hesitantly, “if I hadn’t come last night, would you have left today?”

He paused for only a moment before he shook his head. “Not likely. I think I was probably going to go bumbling back to the cantina and do something stupid to try to win you back. I mean—over. Win you _over_ ,” he added in a low mumble. He cursed silently. Apparently he was actively attempting to prove Cara wrong about that messing up thing. “Not that you were ever mine to begin with.”

She stood and walked over to him, and as she did he ceased fidgeting with the caf machine and turned to face her. The feeling as their eyes locked was unmistakable, even if he knew she couldn’t see through his visor.

“Oh, Din,” she sighed, lifting a hand to curl it lightly on the side of his neck. He felt his hair stand up on end at her touch, and when she twisted a lock of his hair around her fingers a shiver of pleasure and anticipation went shooting down his spine.

“I don’t think either of us ever realized it,” she said, a soft smile playing on her lips, “but I was always yours.”

Din’s devotion to the Way was tested, in that moment; he wasn’t sure how he managed to keep from ripping his helmet off right there and kissing her. Instead he slipped his hands around her waist and pulled her forward until her body contacted his. She pressed against him, snuggling her face between the lower edge of his helmet and his shoulder. Her warm breath on his skin set a fire burning in his belly, and he almost lost it all over again when he felt her lips press unmistakably on his throat.

“Cara,” he croaked, trying to hold himself together.

“Hmmm?” she hummed into his skin as she kissed him everywhere she could access.

His heart was pounding; his mind was blank. They had things to do that did not involve kissing, but what they were he could no longer recall. His lips were practically itching, desperate for hers, but he knew that if he started he wasn’t going to be able to stop. He was already rapidly approaching the point of no return.

The caf machine chimed softly to indicate it was done, the kid burbled, having finished his cake, and Cara pulled back. The spell was broken, temporarily. The amount of promise that she packed into that smile, though, was enough to make him lightheaded.

After she disentagled herself and went to pour her caf he stood dumbly for a minute, his hand lightly touching the side of his neck where her kisses had left his skin inflamed. He wondered if actually being with her might kill him of happiness, but decided he didn’t care.

“You have some shoes I can borrow until we get to my place?” she asked, snapping him out of his reverie.

“Oh, sure,” he mumbled. “Bottom cabinet, near the door. I should, uh, get ready to go.” With that he turned back toward the compartment to put on his armor, trying in vain to put out the fire she’d so successfully stoked inside him.

On the walk to her house Din kept sneaking glances of her out of the corner of his visor, still not quite believing that this was real. The attire of the woman walking next to him, though, went a ways in convincing him. How this woman could manage to look that gorgeous in a baggy t-shirt, shorts, and old, ratty boots was beyond him, though.

Cara was occasionally glancing at him, too, and once in a while she would catch his eye and grin knowingly despite the fact that he hadn’t actually turned his helmet toward her. Each time it sent his insides fluttering wildly. Din wondered if the kid could hear his heart rate spike from the carrier strapped to his front.

The house was tucked away on a side street, a cozy bungalow with a somewhat weedy garden out front. Din briefly wondered if she would miss having a physical address, if she would miss the space; small as the house was, it had way more room for living than the Razor Crest. When they arrived she pushed open the door and left it open behind her.

One might say that the house was messy, but there wasn’t really enough stuff in it to qualify. Most of the shelves were barren, any items she did have that might go on them were stacked randomly on the floor or on tables. It looked kind of like she’d moved in only a week ago, certainly not several months.

Din pulled the kid out of his carrier and set him down, figuring he couldn’t get into too much trouble since there was hardly anything that he could trouble with. The kid looked around briefly then ran off, heart set on exploring the small space.

“I’ll have to tell my landlord I’m leaving,” Cara said as she pulled open the curtains, letting the morning light stream in.

“You’re sure this is what you want?” Din asked. “Giving up your home?”  
  
Cara made a sound that was half a laugh, half a scoff. “This isn’t my home. It’s just a place I slept for a while, nothing more.”

“What makes someplace a home?” he murmured, mostly rhetorically, as he watched her unearth a large duffle bag from a closet and start tossing things in it willy-nilly.

She paused, and tipped her head at him, as if considering the question. Dropping the item she’d been holding in the bag, she sauntered over to him and slid her arms around his waist.

“The people in it?” she replied quietly, looking intently into his visor.

It was the answer he didn’t know he’d been hoping to hear. Din felt his throat tighten up and words failed him. Did she know, when she said things like that, what they meant to him? That when she leaned her forehead against his, as she was doing now, how important it was? He should tell her, he knew, but his tongue felt thick and dumb. One day, he would.

Abruptly the kid went pushing between their legs, dust bunnies caught in his ears. Cara laughed and leaned down to brush them away, then returned to her packing when the kid dove under the bed. Din was about to ask her if she was intending to change into real clothes today when there was a soft knock on the front door frame.

“Can you empty that drawer?” she asked, pointing to the dresser next to him as she left to see who was at the door. Din had just pulled it open when he heard her say, “Karl? What are you doing here?”

Din felt his heart drop; even though Cara had chosen him, even though she was currently packing to leave, he felt his hackles rise and his body tense at the intrusion. What if seeing the other man made her change her mind? It was too much to imagine. Leaving the drawer hanging open, he went into the living room, dreading what he might find.

Karl stood in the doorway looking a bit sallow, as if he hadn’t slept that well. He wore casual linen clothes that were slightly rumpled, and his hair was more tousled than usual. Din immediately felt the hostility that had overcome him replaced by pity. He didn’t know the details of their date the previous night, but it appeared that Karl wasn’t happy with his outcome. Din couldn’t blame him. Even if he hadn’t known Cara that long, she had a way of getting under your skin.

“I, uh, found this, and thought you’d want to have it back,” Karl said, holding out a small, thin knife in one hand.

Cara apparently recognized it. “I didn’t even notice it had fallen out of the sheath!” she exclaimed. “Was it in the bed?”  
  
Din was, at this point, extremely confused. Why had she brought a knife to a date, and why was it in the bed? Where had she even kept it, in the outfit she wore last night? She didn’t seem angry to see Karl, so it didn’t appear that she’d had to use it on him. In the end he chalked it up to Just Cara Things.

“Yeah,” Karl confirmed with a soft laugh, “found it when I was, uh, straightening up.”

Din noticed, then, that Karl’s other hand was wrapped in a bandage. Cara did, too. Tucking the knife into her waistband, she picked up his hand to inspect it. Din fought a small rush of jealousy. Cara had chosen him, he didn’t have to worry, she was just being helpful.

“Oh kriff, did you get cut?” she asked, looking at Karl in concern. “This looks bad.”

“It’s not,” he answered. He tried to pull his hand back from her, but she didn’t let go. “Just hard to wrap with one hand.”  
  
“Well that can be fixed. Come in,” she invited.

Karl allowed himself to be led into the house, though he looked decidedly uncomfortable with this turn of events. Cara sat him down on the couch and went into her bathroom to fetch a medkit. When she emerged she walked over to Din and pushed the kit into his hands.

“Uh, what…?” he asked, uncomprehending.

Cara grinned at him, her eyes sparkling with some unnatural mix of innocence and mischeviousness. “You’re _so_ much better at these things than I am, and I have to pack.”

Karl jumped off the couch at that, cradling his hand against his chest. “I’m ok, really, it’s nothing, don’t want to waste your time…”

“I don’t think I…” Din started.

They were talking over each other making excuses, but both of them trailed off when they saw Cara’s frown. “Enough with this macho banthashit. It’s not like either of you, and it’s not very attractive.”

She glared at them both for a second, daring them to protest. When they did not she turned and went back into the bedroom, leaving the two men alone together. Din stared at the bedroom door for a moment, like she was going to come back through and laugh at her joke, but he wasn’t so lucky. It wasn’t like he was unused to dressing another man’s wounds, but _this_ particular man he wasn’t enthused about spending more time with. He was, however, also unwilling to have Cara annoyed at him right now. Setting his jaw, he walked to the couch.

Karl regarded him warily as they sat down just close enough that Din could reach his hand. His lips were drawn together in a grim expression, as if he was worried that the Mandalorian might knife him instead of dressing his wound. Unsurprisingly, neither of them were happy about this, so they might as well get it done quickly. Din pulled his gloves off and set about to unwrapping Karl’s admittedly shoddy bandaging job.

The wound was shallow but long, and should probably have a few butterfly strips to hold it closed; it began bleeding anew when it was unwrapped. Karl watched his hand intently as Din worked, never looking up at the man next to him. Grabbing a sterilizing wipe, Din cleaned the wound. He knew it would sting, and he heard Karl hiss softly, but to his credit he didn’t flinch.

“So,” Karl said after a bit, still staring at his hand. “Where is home for you?”

The attempt at conversation momentarily surprised Din. He didn’t really care to chat, but he should probably be polite. He pulled a couple of butterfly strips from the kit and peeled off the backing of the first.

“Just my ship,” Din mumbled. “Though until recently I might have called Nevarro home.”

“There are Mandalorians here?”

“Were,” Din corrected. “The covert is gone now.”

“Oh,” Karl replied softly. “Sorry to hear that.”

It was the kind of thing that people said to just be polite, but Din thought he heard true sincerity in Karl’s tone. He glanced up at the other man, wondering what his story was. Karl was looking at him now, the inner edges of his eyebrows quirked upward with empathy. Not that Din _cared_ , but he was a bit curious.

“What about you?” he heard himself say as he focused again on Karl’s injury.

(If you had asked Din how his day would go, dressing the wound of a rival suitor while making small talk would not have been on the list. Or even in the greater realm of possibilities.)

“I grew up here,” Karl answered. He shifted slightly on the couch, whether from discomfort or something else, Din couldn’t tell. “I was born on Alderaan but my parents moved us here when I was pretty young. Always was annoyed at them for that until, you know…”  
  
Din looked up at him sharply. “Does she know?”  
  
“Who, Cara?” Karl asked, his eyebrows knit together in confusion. “No, why?”

Din didn’t really know that it was his place to say, but then again he’d basically already spilled the beans.

“She’s from Alderaan,” he replied quietly.

“Huh,” Karl said. “What are the odds?”

Din had to agree. They were both silent again as he began wrapping Karl’s hand. With the correct bandaging, Karl would retain almost full mobility while it was healing, unlike what his hand had looked like when he came in. Din told him this, and he looked relieved.

“What do you do here on Nevarro?” Din asked.

Karl shifted again slightly. “I’m an importer. Mostly consumables. Food, fabric, liquor…”

“Guess that explains the fancy clothes,” Din mumbled, half to himself.

Karl laughed at that, his face breaking into a wide grin as he glanced up at Din. “Yes, I guess so. I daresay they don’t hold a candle to all that shiny beskar, though.”

“Thanks,” Din replied awkwardly. He wasn’t great at handling compliments anyway, and he particularly didn’t know what to do with this one. “Did you have a hand in Cara’s…?”  
  
“The dress? Oh no, that was all her own doing.”

“I’ve never seen her like that,” Din admitted. “You must have made quite an impression.”

“Not as much as you did, I’m afraid,” Karl sighed, his grin turning wry. “I should have known when she did the thing with the can…”

Din tipped his head at him, confused. “What thing?”  
  
Karl’s eyes went wide. Clearly he thought that Cara had told Din something that she had not.

“Oh, nothing,” he backpedalled. “Forget I said anything.”

“Whatever you say,” Din replied, smiling to himself. He would have to ask her about that later. “So I guess you get offworld often, then?”

Karl nodded. “Not as much as I’d like, to be honest. I don’t have a ship of my own, so I rely on hitching rides when I can.”

“Not sure where you usually work, but we’re headed to Coruscant after this. Could give you a lift.”

Din didn’t know what possessed him to make that offer, one that he wouldn’t have made even under extreme duress not that long ago. Maybe he felt bad for the guy. Maybe he was just being nice. In any case, he fully expected to be turned down, because what sane person would choose to be cooped up in hyperspace with the woman that had rejected him and the man she’d chosen instead.

Instead, Karl replied, “I’d like that.”

The bandaging job was almost done, but Karl had stopped focusing on his hand a while ago. Din could almost feel the other man watching him, no longer wary or hostile, just… interested. He looked up to see the ghost of a smile on the other man’s lips, one eyebrow cocked ever so slightly.

“I swear,” Karl said, “if I had known you two were actually…”  
  
“We weren’t,” Din cut him off, shaking his head. “Not really.”

“Even so, how I thought I could possibly compete with a Mandalorian is beyond me,” Karl replied with a quiet laugh. “Especially one such as yourself.”

“I think you’re selling yourself short,” Din heard himself say.

Karl smiled lopsidedly at him, his eyes dropping as a faint blush crept over his cheeks. Din’s own face was feeling surprisingly warm under his helmet. It was becoming abundantly clear what Cara had seen in the other man: he was distressingly charming. Karl’s face was still tipped slightly down, but those steely blue eyes were looking up at him now, holding his gaze through the visor. Dimly, Din was aware that he’d finished wrapping Karl’s hand minutes ago, and yet he still held it sandwiched between his. The gap between them had closed, no doubt through Karl’s microscopic shifting, and their knees touched.

“Uh, what are you guys doing?” Cara asked from across the room.

Both men yanked their hands back and stood hastily. Karl’s blush deepened substantially as he looked down at the ground; Din would not even countenance thinking about what was happening on his own face, mercifully hidden.

Cara’s eyes narrowed suspiciously at them, a faint smirk of bemusment playing on her lips. She was back in her own clothes now and her hands were planted firmly on her hips. Din suddenly flashed back to a time that his Mandalorian mother had caught him—what word had she used? oh yes, _canoodling_ —with another boy behind the house. Cara’s current body language was eerily similar.

“N–nothing,” Din stammered. “Just getting him bound up— _his wound_ bound up, I mean.”

Karl brandished his freshly wrapped hand and smiled a little too broadly. “All done.”

Din made to move to the side and come around the couch, but somehow in doing so he managed to knock the medkit off the table and onto the floor with a crash. He made to bend down to clean up the scattered supplies but Karl dropped to the ground first, shuffling everything into a pile. Din looked down at where he knelt, now hidden behind the couch from Cara, and the other man looked up at him and unmistakably winked. He _winked_.

This was all getting way out of hand. Din retreated backwards, flanking the couch and coming up next to where Cara stood. Why in the galaxy he was so incredibly flustered he certainly didn’t know. She was still looking at him with that suspiciously bemused expression, as if she _did_ know.

“Aren’t you going to help?” she asked quietly.

Din swallowed hard and glanced over to where Karl was hidden behind the couch. “I think he’s got it.”

“You two seem… friendlier.”

“He’s, uh,” Din faltered, “he’s not so bad.”

Cara bit her lower lip, seemingly to keep from laughing. “Uh huh.”

With a small shake of her head, she turned and went back into the bedroom. Din followed on her heels.

“You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” he accused, pitching his voice low to avoid Karl overhearing.

She had already buried herself in the closet again when she glanced back at him, eyebrow cocked. “What is _that_ , exactly?”

Din waved vaguely back toward the living room. “ _That_.”

“Oh yes, I certainly left my knife on the bed, knowing that he would get cut and come over, so that you two would get smitten over each other while you took care of his wound.” Her voice was dripping with sarcasm and she accentuated it with a dramatic eye roll.

“That’s—that’s certainly not— _certainly not_ what happened—” he sputtered, feeling the blood drain from his face.

She held a hand up to stop him. “Whatever. Look, I’m glad you’re not at each other’s throats. That’s it. We’re leaving soon anyway.”

“About that…” he said, grimacing slightly under his helmet. Cara’s eyebrows arched upwards as she waited for him to continue. “I might have offered him a ride to Coruscant.”

For a moment she just stared at him in surprise. “Why is he going to Coruscant? Kriff that, why are _we_ going to Coruscant? And most importantly, what in creation made you offer him a ride?”

“He’s an importer. There’s a Jedi temple there. And I don’t know… I was being nice?”

Cara nodded slowly as she narrowed her eyes at him, apparently processing this information. “Nice,” she repeated slowly, like she didn’t know what the word meant in this context.

“Hel-lo, and who are you?” Karl’s voice came from the living room.

They heard the kid giggle in response. The look Cara gave him said that this conversation wasn’t over, but Din sincerely hoped it was. Exiting the bedroom together, they found Karl sitting on the couch while the kid stood on the opposite arm, his ears perked up curiously at the new person.

“He’s my son,” Din said, drawing Karl’s attention. His eyebrows knit together in confusion as he gave the Mandalorian a look that said he was seriously wondering what was under that helmet. “My foundling,” he clarified.

“Ah,” Karl replied. “I’ve never seen anything like him. Where did he come from?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out,” Din answered.

The kid had crawled up onto the back of the couch and was now slowly approaching Karl, balancing with ease. His ears were twitching, which Din knew from experience meant he was up to some kind of mischief.

“Does he have a name?” Karl asked, grinning at the kid’s advance.

This time Cara looked at him curiously as well. It had been months, but Din felt no more comfortable with naming the child.

“No,” he answered, shaking his head. “If I find his people, I don’t want another name confusing matters.”

The real reason, the one he knew deep down but couldn’t make himself admit out loud, was that he was afraid that if he named the kid he would get too attached. It was already a worry, what he would do when he found the kid’s people, and he didn’t need more sentiment making it worse.

If Karl or Cara had a response to this, it was neatly displaced by the kid’s sudden leap from the top of the couch. Karl caught him with an “oof!” and broke into laughter that the kid echoed. With the small creature sitting on his stomach, Karl reached a hand up to gently stroke one of the kid’s long, pointed ears.

“You’re a friendly one, aren’t you?”

Din tipped his head slightly as he watched the kid giggle. “Not to everyone,” he murmured.

“He just doesn’t like it when people threaten his dad,” Cara commented wryly, her arms crossed in front of her.

Karl’s eyebrows were raised slightly when he looked at them. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

The kid wiggled off his lap, then, dropping back down to the ground and making a beeline for the small kitchen. He always seemed to know where the food was kept.

“Do you have any thing to eat in here?” Din asked as he followed the kid.

“Should be some protein bars in the cabinet on the right,” she called after him.

He pulled open the cabinet, which was mostly empty, and rifled through the small box of bars looking for a flavor that the kid favored. The kid occupied himself by scaling the bottom cabinets with far more grace than one might expect based on his shape and size.

“I hear you’re tagging along when we leave Nevarro,” he heard Cara say to the man on the couch.

Karl cleared his throat softly. “Yes, well, if that’s ok with you. If you’d rather I not, I completely understand…”  
  
“No, it’s totally fine,” Cara replied, that note of bemusement sneaking into her voice again. “You’re welcome to come.”  
  
“Thank you. I hope things won’t be too awkward…”

“Don’t worry,” she said, and Din could practically feel both pairs of eyes looking at him as he tried to studiously ignore them, “I’m sure it will be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first time writing anything remotely resembling a poly ship, so I'd love to hear if you are enjoying it (please be gentle lol). I'm thinking only one more chapter, and nothing steamy, but we shall see! Thank you for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

“We’re over there,” Din said, nodding toward where the Razor Crest sat.

The setting sun illuminated her shiny surface in a stunning array oranges and pinks, and yet somehow he still felt self-concious about the aging ship. In truth her glory days were far behind her, and the partial dismantling by the jawas hadn’t helped things.

“This is your ship?” Karl asked, sounding distinctly impressed. “I’ve seen it coming and going from Nevarro for years. Always admired it and wondered who’s it was.”

Din could not help but feel distinctly gratified. “Well, now you know.”

As they approached Karl put a hand out to run lightly along her hull as he looked up at the looming ship with a smile. He had cleaned up from when he’d visited Cara’s former house earlier that day, now wearing a light grey pair of pants with a matching jacket that evoked the attire that Din had first seen him in. The clothes were cut exquisitely to fit his shape; there was no doubt they were bespoke. Not unlike his own armor, Din reflected, thinking about the other man’s profession. An importer of fine goods was so beyond the realm of his experience that Din didn't entirely know what to make of it.

“What a classic,” Karl murmured reverently. He turned toward Din. “Twin FF-4 repeating blasters, right?”

The Mandalorian looked at him in surprise, tilting his head. “That’s right. How did you…”  
  
“My father was a bit of a nut for pre-imperial craft,” Karl admitted. “My lack of interest in weaponry was always a disappointment to him, but I guess some of it rubbed off anyway.”

“What did he do?” Cara asked curiously.

“He was also an importer,” he replied, frowning slightly. “A gun runner, I’m not proud to admit. If there is any consolation it’s that he sold mainly to the rebels, though I’m afraid that is rather because the Imperials didn’t need him.”

“Wait,” she said abruptly, stopping in her tracks, “a gun runner here, on Nevarro? Your dad is Miles Odrade?”

Karl turned back to look at her, one eyebrow arched upward. “You’ve heard of him, I see.”

“Not many who haven’t, in the rebellion,” she answered. Something appeared to occur to her then, and she furrowed her brow. “I heard he was Alderaanian originally.”

“He was,” Karl confirmed, shooting a sidelong glance at Din. “We moved here when I was young.”

Cara blinked at him a few times. “I’m from Alderaan, too.”  
  
“I know,” he answered. Cara looked at him in surprise, and he added, gesturing to her hair, “Your braid.”

“Right, of course,” she replied, not looking totally convinced. “Why didn’t you mention it before?”

“Well, I thought it wouldn’t bring up the most pleasant of memories,” Karl explained. Cara frowned and nodded, allowing that he had a point. “But I was pretty young when I left, so I didn’t really make the connection until… until I did,” he finished lamely as he glanced at Din again.

Cara followed his gaze, giving the Mandalorian a pointed look. For his part, Din stayed motionless to ensure his body language admitted nothing. Thankfully, the kid chose that moment to squirm in the carrier strapped to Din’s chest, ready to be set down. Din obliged him and he ran toward the ramp, stopping at the bottom to look back at the three adults as if to ask what they were waiting for. Din gestured toward him, and they followed him into the ship.

The common area of the ship lay in mild disarray, caf cups and the remains of their meager breakfast strewn about. Din hadn’t been planning on having company, and was somewhat embarassed by the mess. If it bothered Karl, however, he didn’t show it; he was too busy looking around at the currently empty carbonite storage.

“This is home,” Din said as he set bags of provisions down on the small table. “Sorry about the mess.”

Karl smirked at him. “Don’t apologize. It’s nice to know you’re actually human under that perfect exterior. Sorry, you are human, right…?”

“Yeah,” Din replied, laughing softly. “I am.”

Cara dropped her duffle unceremoniously in the middle of the floor, and it struck Din how much more chaotic things were going to get around here. The last, bare remnants of his previously solitary life were about to be finally washed away.

“Stash your stuff in any empty compartment,” he told them. “We can sort things out once we’re under way.”

After he’d dropped the morning’s dishes into the wash and stored the provisions, Din disappeared up the ladder into the cockpit, leaving the rest below. Now that everyone was here he wondered if this really was the best idea. Three adults and a small agent of chaos confined to this small space had the potential to be… interesting, in the best scenerio. At least the trip to Coruscant would take no more than a day if things went well.

He was almost ready for takeoff when Cara appeared at the top of the ladder and flopped into the jump seat behind him. She’d taken off her armor and wore only her black tank top and green pants.

“You left Karl to his own devices,” Din commented as he brought the nav system online.

He saw her shrug out of the corner of his visor. “He’s with the kid.”

“Not sure if that makes me more reassured or less,” he replied with a faint chuckle. “Who knows what kind of trouble they could get into.”  
  
“They get along well,” she said, a slight probing note in her voice.

“I noticed.” He made a few more adjustments. “We’re ready to take off.”

Cara leaned over the opening of the ladder. “Hey, you guys good for departure?” she called down.

“We are,” Karl’s answer came from below.

Once they’d cleared the atmosphere he turned the autonav on and swiveled in his chair to look at Cara. Her measured expression was difficult to read.

“You sure you’re ok with him tagging along?” he asked, even though he knew it was a little late now.

“Of course,” she answered. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“It’s a little weird, you have to admit.”  
  
Cara huffed out a laugh. “I never denied that. Are _you_ sure? You never really answered my question of why you invited him.”

“Because I don’t know,” he confessed.

She pushed herself out of the chair and climbed onto the ladder. “Well, probably you should try to figure it out before anyone starts getting ideas. Just sayin’.”

With that she disappeared down the ladder, and he followed her, trying not to think about what kind of _ideas_ those might be. Karl was sitting at the table with the kid in his lap, making a show of admiring the toys that were being shown to him. Din could see that, despite his excitement at having a new person around, the kid was getting tired. His ears were slightly drooped, and as he held up a small carved bantha he yawned.

“Oh very nice,” Karl told him, nodding enthusiastically. He ran a gentle hand down one of the kid’s ears. “You look sleepy, little one.”

Din approached the pair and the kid turned toward him, holding his hands up. “He had an exciting day meeting new people. He’ll sleep well,” he said as he leaned down to pick up the small creature.

The kid nestled into his blankets immediately when Din laid him down in the small compartment that served as his bedroom. His eyes closed, but when Din made to close the door he cracked them open again and held out a small clawed hand. Smiling, he pulled out the mythosaur pendant and handed it over. As usual, the kid clutched it tightly to his chest and stuck one corner in his mouth. Din pulled the door most of the way closed behind him.

He returned to the common area to find Karl digging through the small bag he’d brought. Cara appeared to be rapidly colonizing any available space in their now-shared sleeping compartment, but she stopped what she was doing and reemerged when she saw Din.

“He’s out?” she asked, coming close and wrapping her arms around his waist.

Din nodded. “Sleeping soundly.”

“Good.” She smiled cheekily. “Playtime for adults now.”

A quick glance at the room’s other occupant ascertained that if he was bothered by the display of affection or innuendo, he didn’t show it. Instead, Karl pulled a bottle out of his bag and brandished it in front of him, smiling broadly.

“Speaking of which, I brought a peace offering,” he announced.

Disentangling her arms from Din, Cara crossed the room eagerly to inspect the bottle. “Wait,” she said when she saw it, “this is Alderaanian?”

“It is,” Karl confirmed. “From my own personal cellar.”

The look on his face as he watched her scruitinize the label was one that Din was familiar with: a hopeful smile that ached for confirmation that the gift had made an impression. He knew Karl wouldn’t be disappointed. Cara’s eyes went wide and she looked at Din, as if he had known anything about this. He shrugged at her, only slightly sour about the fact that a personal cellar full of priceless wines was not something he could offer.

“This is way too valuable for us to drink,” she protested.

“Don’t be silly,” Karl insisted. “Wine isn’t worth anything if it’s not enjoyed. I feel like we all got off to a misunderstanding, and you both have been more than kind. This is just a little thank you.”

Cara laughed. “More than a little, but if you insist…”

“Oh, I do.”

She disappeared into the small galley and reemerged with three stout glasses. Not wine glasses—Din didn’t own wine glasses—but they would serve. Her face was plastered with a grin of giddy excitement. He had to admit, it was a damn good present.

“I hope you’re a wine drinker,” Karl said to him as Cara arrayed the cups on the table.

Din sighed. Wrapped up in Cara’s excitement, he hadn’t thought about the further implications. “I can’t…”

“You don’t drink?” the other man asked, his eyebrows furrowing.  
  
Cara frowned as she realized what Din meant. “He can’t take his helmet off in front of anyone.”

“Anyone?”

“No one,” Din confirmed. “But you two can enjoy…”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she interrupted him, shaking her head. “We can drink the way we used to. Sit facing away from each other. If we put our backs together, no one can see anyone’s face.”

It _could_ work, of course, and he didn’t want to be a wet blanket, but it felt strange. Drinking back-to-back had become a somewhat intimate thing between he and Cara during the time they’d spent together, something he only did with her. She was one of the few people he trusted completely not to try to look at his face. His hesitation was obvious, and apparently so was the reason.

“I can wear a blindfold if it would help…?” Karl suggested.  
  
Cara snickered at that, half to herself, as she filled all three glasses. Her amusement was lost on Karl, who looked at her and then Din again, clearly confused. He couldn’t know about the implications of a blindfold to a Mandalorian, of course, and Din did not feel like enlightening him at this point.

“No, it’s fine,” Din said, glad to be hidden behind the helmet. “We can turn down the lights.”

Karl grinned broadly. “Excellent.”

Picking up two glasses, Cara handed one to Din and one to Karl, then retrieved hers from the table. “Floor?” she suggested.

She folded her legs beneath her and dropped to the ground, and after a second Karl followed her lead, putting one shoulder against hers. Din looked down at them, and at the wine in his glass. _Well, what the hell._ With a good deal less grace than the others he descended to the floor and leaned cautiously against the others’ backs. He tapped a control on his vambrace and the lights fell. It was light enough to just see what they were doing, and it wouldn’t prevent exposure completely, but it was still dim enough to be reassuring. He reached up to pull his helmet off and sat it on the ground next to him.

“Good wine,” he mumbled after he took a sip. He knew next to nothing about wine, but enough to know this was exceptional.

Cara laughed at his understatement. “It’s amaaaazing. Tastes like home.” She was silent for a moment, and Din could sense that she was struggling with her emotions. When she spoke again her voice was thick. “I don’t know how to thank you, Karl. Really.”

“If there’s anyone who deserves this exquisite wine, it’s a stunningly gorgeous daughter of Alderaan.”

“Ok, that’s definitely not fair,” Cara laughing through sniffles. “I’m gonna need another glass of that.”

“Din? More for you?” Karl asked as he refilled her glass. “I apologize that I didn’t have any Mandalorian specialties to offer.”

Din huffed out a laugh as he held his glass out. “Mandalorians don’t make wine. But we do appreciate other people’s.”

“That I can understand,” Karl agreed. “Before we drink it all, I’d like to propose a toast. To new friends.”

“To new friends,” Cara and Din repeated, raising their glasses high.

Din didn’t know how long they sat there talking, but it was far beyond the bottle of wine lasted. At some point another bottle of liquor appeared, but he was pretty sure Cara was responsible for that one. It was harsh and burned it’s way down his throat, but it kept the conversation going until Din could hardly keep his eyes open.

He took advantage of a lull in the conversation to throw back the rest of what was in his glass and grab his helmet, putting it on as he pushed himself to standing. “I don’t know about you two, but I’m beat.”

Cara turned to look at him, holding out her hand for assistance. When he pulled her up she collapsed into his arms, he was sure entirely on purpose, giggling. Still sitting on the ground, Karl let himself fall backwards until his head clunked softly on the floor.

“I’ll just sleep here,” he sighed, grinning with his eyes closed.

Din looked down at him. “Don’t be silly.” It wasn’t like he had multiple beds on offer in the ship, but no doubt he could find somewhere more comfortable than the floor.

“I don’t think he’ll fit in your bed with us,” Cara murmured, her face close to his helmet.

“Seriously, just throw me some blankets,” Karl insisted. “I’m easy.”

Disentangling himself from Cara was difficult both mentally and physically, but he managed. He pulled out the blankets and dropped them on Karl, who accepted them gratefully.  
  
“Are you sure that’s enough?” Din asked.

“Yes, yes,” Karl mumbled, wrapping himself up in the blankets.

That seemingly settled, Cara dragged him toward the sleeping compartment and pushed him through the door and onto the bed. She wasted no time triggering the door to close, plunging them into darkness. After a minute he felt her straddle his lap and place her hands on either side of his helmet. He covered her hands with his, and they lifted his helmet off together. He let her set it to the side and then her hands returned to his temples as she snaked her fingers into his hair.

As reserved as she had been the previous night, she was not at that moment. He wasn’t sure if it was just the alcohol or something else besides, but she kissed him hungrily. Her tongue darted between his lips, sliding across his teeth and tangling with his own. He returned in kind, sucking and pulling on her lips with wild abandon. His hands moved almost of their own accord as they pushed the bottom edge of her tank top upward and slid across her warm bare skin.

“Cara,” he gasped as her lips found his throat, nipping and sucking as she did that morning. “I don’t think…”

His mind blanked with pleasure before he could finish his sentence, but it was enough to make her pause. She leaned in, pressing her forehead to his.

“I don’t think this is a good idea, with, you know…” He nodded slightly toward the common area of the ship.

She laughed softly, rubbing her nose gently against his. “What, you want me to invite him to join?”

“Cara…”

“Kidding…” she breathed. She stole quick kiss as her thumb traced circles on his cheek. “… mostly.”

Her lips brushed his again before she climbed off his lap. He fought a surge of disappointment, but there would be time enough later. It seemed to take only moments for Cara to strip and dive into the bed behind him; his armor took significantly longer to remove. When he finally lay down beside her he felt her wearing the shirt he’d given her and smiled. Once again he was struck by the unreality of the situation: she was here, wrapped in his arms. He didn’t think he could be any luckier.

* * *

The ship was silent when he woke in the dead of night. The only sounds he could hear were the quiet rumble of the ship’s engines and the soft breathing of the woman laying half on top of him. It was far too early to be awake, but after all that wine his bladder had something to say about that. Din extracted himself carefully and stepped out of the compartment, casting a quick look at the man sleeping in the middle of the floor. He looked to be out cold.

Apparently not totally, though, because when Din opened the door to the fresher again the first thing he saw was Karl pushing himself into a standing position. He made no sign that he knew Din was up; no doubt his reason for being awake was the same as the Mandalorian’s.

Din quickly stepped backwards into the fresher and shut the door again. He hadn’t bothered with his helmet, figuring it was dark and everyone was asleep, but there was definitely enough light in the main compartment to show his face.

“Din?” he heard Karl say quietly outside the door. “Is that you?”

“Yeah. I don’t have my helmet. Can you look away?”

There was a brief pause and then Karl answered. “Ok, you’re safe.”

Such an odd choice of words, that, but appropriate. _Safe_. He didn't feel that way around many people. When he opened the door he found that in lieu of looking away Karl was holding one hand tightly over his eyes. He still stood right outside the fresher, and when Din exited it brought them into close proximity. Din told himself should step around the other man and go back to the compartment, but something froze him in place.

At some point after they had gone to bed, Karl had shed much of his clothing and now just wore a pair of loose shorts. Din felt his eyes drawn across the other man’s sculpted chest and abs, his toned muscles covered by smooth skin. It wasn’t really fair that the rest of him should be so attractive too. When his gaze returned to Karl’s face, he saw his lips curling into a smirk.

“I feel I’m at a disadvantage here,” Karl murmured.

“Yeah?”

“Well, I’m a bit exposed…"

“I’m wearing no more than you are,” Din told him.

Karl’s smirk deepened, bringing out a dimple in one cheek. “Not like I can tell.”

Din was silent, and after a moment Karl brought his free hand up, stretching it tentatively toward him. The hand crept closer and Din felt himself sway ever so slightly forward. Karl’s fingers brushed his collarbone, then trailed lightly along the bone toward the notch at the top of his sternum. Din inhaled sharply, but said nothing.

So emboldened, Karl slid his hand down Din’s chest and across his abdomen, leaving a trail of goosebumps in his wake. It wasn’t until Din felt Karl’s fingers brush the waistband of his shorts that he grabbed the other man’s wrist, but still he didn’t pull his hand away. Karl’s palm lay flat against his skin, the heat of it so searing Din thought it might leave a print when it was removed.

Din had no idea what was happening. He could hear his heart pounding in his head and blood rushing in his ears. He loved Cara, but he felt some strange magnetic attraction pulling him toward the man standing in front of him. A fierce, feral desire coiled deep in his abdomen. The temptation to do something he would regret was becoming overwhelming.

“I can’t,” Din choked out, barely a whisper.

Karl’s hand slipped from Din’s grasp as he withdrew it. “I understand.”

Din hesitated for another moment before he finally stepped around Karl and into the compartment where Cara lay. Sitting on the bed, he let out a long, slow exhale, trying to compose himself.

“You ok?” Cara whispered from the bed, making him jump in surprise.

“Yeah, fine,” he breathed.

It was pitch black in the small compartment, but after a moment he felt Cara kiss him gently on the top of his hip. He sighed heavily and let her pull him down to lay next to her in the bed. She wrapped her arms tightly around him, twining her legs with his as she nestled up under his shoulder.

“It doesn’t have to be an either-or scenerio,” she murmured.

Din wasn’t sure he’d heard her right. “What?” he asked.

Cara placed as soft kiss on his chest. “You, me, the absurdly attractive man sleeping outside who’s bones you were just about to jump.”

“How did you—”

He stopped himself, more than a little disconcerted that his response had been to ask her how she’d known rather than a denial.

“I don’t blame you,” she offered. “He’s got extremely jumpable bones.”

The situation was so absurd Din would have laughed had he not been in the middle of it. As it was, he had no idea how to respond. Was she really suggesting what he thought she was?

As if she could sense his misgivings, her arms tightened around him again. “Look, this is not me pushing for anything you’re not comfortable with. I’m perfectly happy with it just being you and me. But it seems like things have gotten complicated around here, and I’m just saying that they don’t necessarily have to be. I love _you_ , but I can’t deny there is something about him, and I think you feel it too. Just think about it, ok?”

Din’s heart felt like it stopped. “What did you say?” he whispered.

“What, think about it?”  
  
“No, before that.”

He felt her cheeks scrunch against his chest as she smiled. “I love you, silly.”

“You do?” he asked, even though he knew it was a stupid question.  
  
“Of course I do.”

Din desperately wished he could see her face in this moment, but if that were true then it would mean they couldn’t be as close as they were now, in the dark. He felt overwhelmed by emotion, right when he definitely had not expected it. In the end, though, there was no time more perfect for such declarations then when they were wrapped in each other’s arms.

“I love you,” he breathed.

“I know.”

Din raised one hand and placed it under Cara’s chin, tipping her face upward toward his. His lips found hers and he kissed her gently. She smiled into the kiss, sliding one hand up to cup his jaw tenderly.

“So?” she asked. He didn’t have to ask what she meant.

“Ok,” he said. “I’ll think about it.”

* * *

When he emerged from the compartment that morning, leaving Cara still slumbering in the bed, the first thing Din saw was a pile of neatly folded blankets sitting in one corner. He poked his head into the kid’s compartment, but as he expected the carrier was empty. The kid never slept in, but usually he was in the common area of the ship. Pausing for a moment, he listened to the quiet morning sounds of the ship. Sure enough, he heard a soft voice coming from the galley.

“You want to add some of that, yeah?” he heard Karl murmur as he approached silently. “I agree, it could be tasty. Oh no don’t touch that, it’s hot. How about you pour that in?”

Karl stood in front of the small stove, his body blocking a view of what he was doing. Next to him, the kid sat on the counter, ears perked up in concentration. They were certainly cooking something, and Din watched them work for a few minutes more. It was kind of astounding how quick the kid had seemingly adopted this new person.

“I hope he didn’t wake you,” the Mandalorian said eventually.

Karl jumped, whipping around to look at Din with one hand pressed against his chest. “Hi,” he said through heavy exhale, “you gave me quite a start.”

“Sorry. Old habits die hard when you sneak up on people for a living.”

“Remind me to never do anything that would result in you hunting me,” he laughed, then turned back to his pan. “I’m glad you’re up, it was getting hard to keep him from eating everything.”

Din watched as Karl opened a cupboard and plucked out several plates and a small bowl. Apparently he’d been up long enough become familiar with the galley already. He scooped a portion of whatever he’d cooked into the bowl while the kid looked on, grinning excitedly.

“Is Cara awake?”

Din was about to say that she tended to sleep in when he heard soft footsteps padding up behind him.

“Mmmm, she is now,” she said through a yawn. “Something smells amazing.”

Karl smiled at the praise as he dished out servings onto three more plates. Cara had already seated herself at the table and Karl placed the food in front of her before handing one to Din. On the plate sat a square of some kind of fluffy egg concoction, bits of meat and cheese dotted throughout. Cara was right, it did smell amazing, and his mouth watered.

“Sorry, I don’t know…” Karl said, looking uncertainly from him to the table and back.

“I’ll eat in the galley,” Din told him. “Thanks for this, you really didn’t have to.”

“Nonsense, just something I whipped together. And the kid helped.”

Said kid was obviously pleased with his own work, since he was currently devouring the food with gusto. Apparently unable to resist any longer, Cara tucked into hers and made a face of pleasure. Then she leveled a meaningful look at Din that he was pretty sure meant, “C _an we keep him?”_

Din smiled at her antics and turned to retreat into the galley, pulling the door mostly shut behind him. The food was indeed delicious, and far better fare than he usually ate while underway.

“I had no idea you could cook like this,” he heard Cara say from the table in the common area.

“Well you didn’t let me make you anything, ah, well, the other morning,” Karl replied.

So Cara had spent the night with him at least once. Din felt a twinge of jealousy at the thought, but nothing like before. It was almost as if he were more jealous at having been left out than that it had happened. Which was a ridiculous thought, but it was there all the same.

“Believe me, I was in no state,” she answered. “But I’m glad you insisited on dinner. Now I think I should have just had you cook for me.”

“I’m flattered, but my cooking isn’t near on par with the chefs at La Tevica.”  
  
“Yeah, but no dress code.”

Karl laughed. “Oh no, depriving the galaxy of you in that dress would have been a crime. Tell me you still have it?”  
  
“I do,” she answered coyly.

“I made her keep it,” Din said as he emerged from the galley.

Karl grinned up at him. “Smart man.”

“Thank you for breakfast. It was very delicious.”

“Like I said, it was nothing,” Karl replied, waving him off. “Consider it my thanks for the lift.”

Din tipped his head at him. “You cook for everyone who gives you a lift, then?”

“Ah, well no,” the other man replied, giving the wide smile of embarassment that Din had become familiar with, “not usually.”

Cara grinned at that, but was too busy polishing off her breakfast to add any suggestive commentary.

“I should go check our course,” Din announced, turning toward the ladder to the cockpit. “I think we’ll be heading into a tricky navigation spot soon.”

“Sparring later?” Cara called after him.

Din paused at the base of the ladder. “In a few hours we should be through, and I’ll have digested enough to think that’s a good idea,” he replied.

* * *

It wasn’t until later in the afternoon, ship’s time, that Din found himself squaring off against Cara in the cargo hold of the ship. In a fit of optimism he’d purchased foam mats to put down a few weeks ago, and now he was going to finally test them out. After all, there was no doubt he’d be the one who spent the most time falling on them.

Cara danced lightly around him, bouncing on bare feet, her wrapped fists up next to her face. He always felt like a lumbering oaf when he watched her fight, even though she insisted that she was impressed with his agility, especially in armor. Today he wore only a light shirt and pants, though, as he usually did when they trained on the ship.

Fights with Cara always started out quiet. He could see her concentrating on her initial moves, testing out new patterns and combinations. It was only after they’d both loosened up that she got chatty, just about the time that he was feeling worn and needed to concentrate on his moves.

She came at him quickly with a combo of punches and kicks, which he blocked and dodged successfully. They traded off attacks and parries a few times until he could see a sheen of sweat glistening on her brow. After her next attack he tried a sweep, hoping that it would be quick enough that she wouldn’t have reset, but she saw it coming anyway. She grabbed his leg as she blocked it, rolling into the movement and sending him backwards onto the mat. She straddled him as he lay on his back, grinning broadly.

“Din Djarin, are you trying to sweep me off my feet?”

“Maybe,” he huffed, “doesn’t seem to be working, though.”

She laughed lightly. “Must be because I’m already yours.”

“No, I’m pretty sure it’s just impossible,” he retorted, smiling back at her behind his helmet.

In one fluid motion Cara peeled her tank top off and slung it off into a corner, leaving her in only her sports bra. This was another sign that they’d entered the looser, conversational part of the sparring session. The first time she’d done it he’d been so stunned that he could barely string words together, much less fight.

This time, it was different yet again. He didn’t have to resist placing his palms on her waist, feeling the taught muscles below the smooth skin. But she wasn’t done training. Climbing off of him, she held out her hand and pulled him to standing when he took it. Then she got in her fighting stance again, and he returned to his.

“Have you thought about our predicament?” she asked as she threw a punch.

He dodged it, jumping to the side. “Yeah.”

“And?”

“This is all very fast,” Din replied through his controlled breaths. “I’ve only known this guy for a day and a half, and you don’t have much more on me.”

The look she gave him seemed to suggest that she hadn’t thought he’d make this particular argument. “How long did it take you to fall in love with me on Sorgan?”  
  
He didn’t really know how to answer that question, not really. At the time he would never have admitted to himself, but looking back…

Cara came at him with another combo and he returned it. She took the opportunity to grab his arm and twist it behind his back, clearly waiting for an answer.

“Approximately ten minutes,” he sighed.

This was obviously not the answer she was expecting. She dropped his arm and stepped back, looking at him with her head tilted. “Wow. Really?”

“Uh, yeah,” he confirmed, feeling himself flush behind the helmet. “But that doesn’t mean anything. It took us almost a year to actually be together.”

Cara began bouncing around him again, and he readied for another attack. “So what you’re telling me is you want to replicate that stupidity.”

“No, I’m just saying that it’s fast.” Din deployed a punching combo and this time when she retaliated he was ready, wrapping one arm around her neck. “Are you proposing we ask him to stay with us? He has a life and career on Nevarro.”

She twisted out of his loose grip and bounced away. “So did I, and you came to ask me.”

“That’s different. Nevarro’s his home. It was never going to be that for you and you know it.”

“Look, doing something doesn’t mean let’s all move in together immediately. I told Greef I’d visit him frequently anyway,” she offered. She paused her argument to let loose a blisteringly fast attack that almost brought him to his knees. “We wouldn’t be having this conversation if you didn’t feel something for the guy. If I’m wrong, tell me to leave it. But if I’m right, then we need to ask him.”

In truth, Din had been trying to talk himself out of the idea all morning. It would unnecessarily complicate things, it wasn’t practical, it would never work out. She was right, though. That morning, watching him make breakfast with the kid, he’d been struck by how right it felt, having him in their lives. Din and Cara fit together like two weird puzzle pieces that had never been designed to have a match, but by some astounding cooincidence had found one. That anyone else could be part of this puzzle seemed impossible, but then _he_ showed up and fit perfectly against the jagged edges that remained, the ones that seemed like they could never be smoothed.

“Ask me what?”

Cara and Din both whirled toward the doorway to see Karl leaning on the frame, arms crossed in front of him and an interested expression on his face.

“How long have you been standing there?” Din huffed, out of breath.

Karl shrugged, smiling enigmatically. “Not that long.”

“Enjoying the show?” Cara asked with a mischevious grin.

Din glanced at Cara and down at himself. Sweat had plastered his shirt to his torso, highlighting all the things that Karl had not seen the previous night. For her part, Cara’s bare skin glistened, and the smoldering expression on her face said she knew exactly how unbelieveably sexy she looked right now.  
  
“Absolutely,” Karl answered, his smile widening. Uncrossing his arms, he stuck his hands in his pockets and wandered slowly towards them.

“Where’s the kid?” Din asked. “I hope he didn’t bother you too much.”

Karl had claimed he had work he could do en route and had set up in the common area with a holopad. The kid had been playing quietly nearby, and their guest had offered to keep an eye on him while they sparred.

“Napping. He was great. Helped me pick out some interesting textiles to check out while I’m on Coruscant.”

Din couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.

“How do you train, Karl?” Cara asked as he approached, looking him up and down appreciatively.

“Oh, nothing much,” he shrugged.

Din snorted despite himself. “Nothing much doesn’t get you…” He gestured vaguely toward Karl before he realized what it implied.

“How’s that, Din?” Cara asked with mock innocence.

“Well, you should know,” he sputtered. Her smile faltered, and he regretted it immediately. “I heard you, this morning,” he explained weakly, “I know you spent a night together. Which is not really my business at all…”  
  
“It’s not what you think,” Karl said, glancing at Cara awkardly.

“We didn’t have sex,” Cara jumped in. Din almost laughed; she was ever the blunt one. “I mean, we almost did, but I was really drunk and Karl put me to bed instead.”

“Oh,” Din replied.

Karl was looking at the ground, hands jammed deep in his pockets. “I should let you get back to your sparring.”

“I think we were pretty much done,” she said. “Right, Din?”  
  
He looked at her, worried he’d mucked things up royally, but she didn’t appear to be annoyed. She gave him an encouraging smile and nodded toward Karl’s retreating form. What she expected him to do was somewhat unclear.

“I call first shower,” she announced, bending down to pick up her discarded tank top.

When they entered the common area of the ship Cara promptly disappeared into the fresher, leaving the two men together. On such a craft there weren’t a lot of places to go unless you were actively hiding from someone, and that didn’t seem like a message he wanted to send at the moment. Pulling out a chair, Din took a seat at the small table. Karl disappeared briefly into the galley and returned with a glass of water, holding it out to the Mandalorian.

“I’ll turn away while you drink,” he offered, then retreated back to the other side of the small space and faced into a corner.

Din was so touched by the thoughtfulness of the gesture that he sat there for a long moment before he actually pulled off his helmet and gulped the water gratefully.

“Thank you,” he managed, taking the chance to wipe his face with his shirt.

“Don’t mention it.”

Din took another swallow of the water. “Sorry about that, back there. I didn’t mean to make things awkward.”  
  
“No, I think I’m the one who should apologize for that,” Karl replied, shaking his head. “About last night…”

Something pulled Din out of his seat, then. He stood, leaving his helmet on the table, and in a few short strides he was standing behind the other man.

“Don’t,” he murmured. “Don’t apologize.”

Karl inhaled deeply but didn’t turn; he could hear Din’s voice without the modulator and understood, as Din had somehow known he would. He raised one hand slid it lightly over the side of Karl’s neck, feeling the fast pulse thrumming under his fingers. Then, in one impulsive move Din pulled Karl’s shoulder to turn him around, trusting that his eyes would be closed.

Karl’s closed eyes stared back at him blindly, his lips slightly parted in something like surprise or desire or both. He pressed them together briefly, and when his tongue darted out to wet them Din gave into the reckless impulse that had dragged him over there. He leaned closer, his hand curling behind Karl’s neck to pull the taller man’s face to his.

The kiss was tentative at first, the barest brush of the lips, but Karl responded eagerly and Din pushed deeper, opening his mouth in invitation. Karl raised a hand to entwine his fingers in Din’s hair and pull the Mandalorian closer, his tongue licking experimentally into Din's mouth. Slipping a hand beneath his jacket, Din grabbed Karl’s waist, feeling his abdominal muscles clench through the thin shirt as he pressed his body against Din’s sweaty torso. The idle thought that he must be getting Karl’s nice clothes all messy flashed through Din’s mind before it was obliterated by a wave of blind desire. Karl caught his lower lip and raked his teeth slowly across it, eliciting a low moan from one of them that was swallowed when they crashed hungrily back together.

Kissing him was nothing like kissing Cara; the latter was not unlike their sparring, a constant give and take, each partner trying to gain the high ground. In this kiss, every time one of them gave the other seemed to open up and give even more. Where Cara was all sensuous curves, from her full lips to the roundness of her hips, Karl was hard angles. Yet this wasn’t like kissing the Mandalorian men he’d dallied with in the past. No, Karl was something new entirely.

Din didn’t know how long he’d been lost in the kiss when he heard the water in the fresher stop. Cara would emerge soon, and when she did the first thing she would see was the two men in each other’s arms. The kiss was not what worried Din, though, but rather that there was no way she wouldn’t see his face. He broke the kiss and leaned his head against Karl’s, breathing heavily.

“Cara,” he whispered, “she’ll see my face…”

Karl’s hand slid forward from behind his head to cup his cheek, his thumb brushing lightly over the Mandalorian’s lips. “Go,” he whispered back.

He’d just replaced his helmet when the fresher door slid open and Cara emerged wrapped in a towel. It was rather not large enough to be completely decent, the lower edge of it just barely covering the curve of her behind. Rivulets of water dripped off the ends of her hair and slid down her chest to disappear between her breasts. Din didn’t really know how he was supposed to function with this much temptation in front of him. He leaned on the table, breathing heavily.

Cara looked from him to where Karl stood and back again, her eyes narrowing. Din might be able to hide, but there could be no mistaking that the other man had been very thoroughly kissed. Karl’s cheeks were flushed, his lips pink and swollen, and there was a red spot on his chin where Din’s beard had rubbed. And that was before you took into account the generally rumpled state of his clothing.

“No fair starting without me,” she accused, smirking smugly.

“I, uh, n–need a shower,” Din stammered as he pushed off the table and stumbled past her toward the fresher, adding inaudibly, “a cold one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so this is _not_ done in three chapters, but who is surprised at that. I'm having too much fun to let them go. Also I feel like you should know that I watched far too many gifs of Pedro and Tom kissing people in the name of "research" for this chapter.
> 
> I want to thank you all again l for your kudos and comments on this story. I know that a OT3 with an original character is not everyone's thing. Huge thanks to everyone who's taken the time to leave even a short comment, they really mean the world to me. If you're enjoying the story I'd love to hear from you!! 😘


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay on this chapter. Work has been nuts lately and I've had to do a lot of not-so-fun writing instead of this. In the end I decided to go ahead and post this and tack on what's left as an epilogue, when I can finally get a chance to write it. It also doesn't help that plot bunnies for other fics keep mulitplying in my head, lol.
> 
> Some of my earlier angst snuck into the beginning of this one, too.

How did it all come to this?

The last few days felt like a blur. He could hardly remember how this situation had come about, a series of unorthodox and unexpected choices that had led to that moment when he found himself in the arms of another man. Not his first time, but this particular situation was entirely novel. Two days ago they’d glared daggers at each other in a crowded cantina, hackles raised in silent competition over the same woman, and now… what?

Had that even been real?

Without thinking he reached up to trail one finger along his lips, remembering the press of his lips and the slide of his tongue.

“It’s almost more intense, right? When you can’t see.”

His eyes shot open, then; he hadn’t even realized he’d closed them again, after the Mandalorian had fled for the shower. Cara stood before him, now dressed, her damp hair leaving dark splotches on the straps of her black tank top. She leaned against one wall with her arms crossed in front of her, watching him with a bemused smirk twisting her lips. He searched her gaze for any sign of upset, but she didn’t even look surprised, much less concerned about this development.

Karl hadn’t been lying when he’d said he didn’t heard much of their conversation in the cargo hold. In truth the assumption that they were talking about him had been a large one, although now it seemed that he hadn’t been wrong. Was this planned? That felt extremely unlikely, but there was clearly more going on here than he knew.

“Uh, yeah,” he managed, his throat tight. He smiled feebly. “I guess so.”

Cara grinned at him and pushed off the wall, turning to go check on the kid. He wasn’t sure if he was grateful that the conversation was over for the moment, or distressed to have been left alone with his own thoughts. He dropped his still-raised hand and looked down at himself, running his hands over his now-creased clothing.

He didn’t know why he’d accepted Din’s offer of a lift to Coruscant except that he meant to go there anyway to scout some new sources. Sure, it was an odd proposition, but he was an opportunist, and determined that if it wasn’t going to bother the Mandalorian, it wasn’t going to bother him. If he had expectations at all for the ride, they had certainly not included this.

Which was not to say he hadn’t been _flirting_. Maybe it wasn’t the smartest idea he’d had, but he found himself powerless to resist the impulse. Once the threat of violence and the sting of competition had been removed, the Mandalorian had proved strangely alluring. Particularly the unexpected tenderness of his hands as he’d wrapped up Karl’s wound, at odds with the fierce forboding of his armor. And that was before he’d found out about the child. How completely unexpected, and utterly endearing, the pair of them were.

Of course, he never expected it to _go_ anywhere. For all her uncertainty earlier, it was clear that Din and Cara were a perfect match and hopelessly in love with each other. So Karl flirted with her, and flirted with him, and everyone knew it was all in good fun. That was before he’d spent the night on the floor of the Razor Crest, tossing and turning, dreaming fitfully of the press of her lips and the caress of his hands, to say nothing of his encounter with the Mandalorian in the middle of the night.

He’d spent the last few hours trying—sometimes successfully, sometimes not—to ignore the burning thrum of desire that had been growing steadily within him and, more distressingly, the insistent tug on his heart whenever he thought of them. He had nearly managed to convince himself that he’d been reading too much into, well, everything, when Din had snuck up behind him, unmasked.

If he’d known giving water to a thirsty man would have that result, maybe he’d have done it sooner. He closed his eyes again and shook his head, trying to chase the thought away.

He had no idea what to do with all of the feelings that were bubbling up to the surface, threatening to burst him open. They’d be at Coruscant in less than an hour, and that would be it. They’d go off to their business, and he’d go to his. The thought was mildly panic-inducing, even though that had been the plan all along.

Karl Odrade was not a begging man, had never begged for anything in his life. His father would have never allowed such weakness. Requested, yes; implored, even. But now, for the first time in his life, he wanted to fall to his knees and beg them to take him with them, to let him stay. He wouldn’t, though. Couldn’t. Seductive as the idea might be, he wasn’t stupid enough to think that this was ever more than a momentary dalliance, a passing flight of fancy. This was not his family, not his life, not his to take.

By the time Din had emerged from the shower and dressed again, it was time to begin their descent into the atmosphere. Karl couldn’t decide if he was relieved or disappointed that they didn’t speak of what had happened. He stayed below and played with the child while Din and Cara climbed up to the cockpit. Occasionally he would hear would hear voices echoing down out of the small space, snatches of conversation—some of which included his name—but he was resolutely not listening. He’d made up his mind: when they landed he would leave politely but quickly. Yanking off the bandage would sting like hell, but he was sure he couldn’t bear anything more drawn out.

The small bag he’d brought waited by the ramp to the ship, and he saw Din notice it immediately when he descended the ladder. The Mandalorian looked back at him sharply, but didn’t say anything; Cara appeared to be too busy readying the kid for an outing to have taken heed of it.

“I have to thank you once again for the lift, and for the exceptional company,” Karl said, forcing his voice to be light. He strode purposefully toward the bag and picked it up, turning to look back at them. “Best of luck with your search.”  
  
Cara stopped what she was doing and blinked at him several times, uncomprehending. “You’re… leaving?”

“I have an appointment with a new supplier,” he told them, flashing a smile he didn’t feel. It wasn’t a lie, although he was going to have several hours to kill. “And I should let you get going. You’ve been more than kind, and I wouldn’t want impose.”  
  
“That’s not…” she began, but the words died on her tongue.

A host of emotions flitted across her face, dominated by confusion and something Karl wanted to read as disappointment, but knew that he shouldn’t. She looked at the Mandalorian, who stood there stock still, as if he were a statue. A blanket of silence fell over them, and Karl was just about to turn to go when he finally spoke.  
  
“How will you get back to Nevarro?” he asked, his voice sounding tight even through the modulator.

“I’ll hitch a ride with my goods. It usually pays to accompany them anyhow.”

“I see,” Din replied.

Karl stared at them nervously for a moment. He hadn’t expected them to be so _surprised_ by this. Cara seemed to have been stunned into silence altogether. Momentarily he wondered what they had been expecting, but decided that was a dangerous road to travel down. Instead, he grinned at them as disarmingly as he could.

“I hope you’ll stop by next time you’re in Nevarro,” he said.

The Mandalorian inclined his head slightly. “Of course.”

Karl left, then, before he could start thinking again of what might happen if he didn’t.

* * *

He hadn’t even been back on Nevarro a week when he spotted them in the market. It was early and crowded with people thronging to the stalls to get the choicest produce, but even at a distance they were unmistakable. The sunlight glinted off the Mandalorian’s helmet like a beacon, catching his eye and freezing him in his tracks. He hadn’t expected them back so soon.

If he had thought he might be able to go back to his life as he had known it, he was sorely mistaken. Thoughts of the Mandalorian, the shocktrooper, and their adorable adopted kid had plagued him, rising seemingly from nowhere at inopportune times to make his insides clench. He’d tried to distract himself with hot women, with cold showers, with with the excitement of sports, and with the boredom of accounting. Nothing worked.

Once, in a fit of pique, he’d gone back to the cantina where it all began and sought out Karga. He hadn’t talked to the former magistrate since he was a kid, when Karga used to visit his family and pretend he didn’t know just what Karl’s father was importing. Karl knew that Karga had helped his family become established on Nevarro, long ago, but as the years wore on they saw less and less of him, and when the Imps had occupied Nevarro he’d disappeared for a time. Karl had thought he might be dead, but then after the war was over Karga had popped up again. By then Karl was an adult with his own business that never brought him within the sphere of bounty hunters.

Karga had looked confused at Karl’s line of questioning, but told him that the Mandalorian had typically spent long stretches of time away from Nevarro before the kid, before Cara. There was no reason to think they would do any differently, especially because they were now on a mission to reunite the kid with his people. Karl had nodded numbly, accepting that it might be a long time before he saw them again.

Karl watched them surreptitiously for a moment, pretending to scruitnize some vegetables at the stall in front of him. Din turned his head toward Cara and must have said something, because she laughed out loud and swatted his pauldron playfully. As she turned he caught sight of the kid, strapped to her front.

Some unnameable emotion lurched within him and dropped his head, screwing his eyes shut in a vain attempt stifle the feeling. He swore under his breath, irritated with himself by the reaction. Maybe they wouldn’t run into each other, maybe they wouldn’t seek him out, and he could finally close this strange chapter in his life and move on. He took a deep breath to steady himself and looked back to where they had been, but they were gone. Probably better that way.

“Feeling ok there, Odrade?” a familiar voice said from behind him.

Karl whipped around, his eyes widening involuntarily. Cara had somehow snuck up on him and was grinning mischeviously, hands planted on her hips. Strapped to her front, the kid let out a squeal of happiness when he saw Karl and reached forward. Karl felt a pang of regret that he had nothing to give the child.

“Cara,” he breathed. He knew his smile was too tight to be natural, but he couldn’t help it. “I–I’m fine. Just the heat.”

She nodded knowingly. The day was already blisteringly warm, and she’d lived on the planet long enough to know what that meant. It would be the kind of day to stay inside somewhere with a cooling system. A moment later Din appeared next to her and handed a fruit to the kid before he turned his attention to Karl. Even though he had a few inches on the Mandalorian, the latter seemed to somehow loom larger in that armor. Karl swallowed hard.

“I didn’t expect to see you so soon,” he managed, glancing between the two of them. So much for moving on.

Cara shrugged. “Coruscant was a bust. We needed to regroup and make a new plan, figured that Nevarro was as good as anywhere. Better, maybe.” She cocked an eybrow at him suggestively.

“Ah,” Karl replied, trying to ignore the way his heart was pounding in his chest. “You think you’ll be here long, then?”

“Long enough,” Din replied, his voice flat and even.

A kind of manic recklessness surged through him, then, and he barely realized what words were coming out of his mouth. “You should come to my place for dinner tonight,” he said breezily, adding with only a bit of uncertainty, “if you want.”

Cara looked up at the Mandalorian, her grin growing wider. “We’d love to.”

* * *

“I’ve never seen you take this long to get ready for anything,” Din called to her.

Cara had been ensconced in the fresher for nearly an hour doing god knows what. Occasionally a string of swearing would erupt and he’d try to poke his head in to check on her but she shooed him away before he could see what she was up to. Rebuffed, he bided his time by watching the kid play with his toys for a while and then by thinking hard about reorganizing his weapons cabinet. He still needed to make real space for Cara’s after all.

He looked at the time and sighed. “We’re gonna be late, at this rate.”

With a flourish the door to the fresher opened and she emerged. She was wearing the dress again, and somehow it was more stunning than he’d remembered. Somewhere she’d gotten a thin, silver y-shaped necklace that hung down between her breasts and brought even more attention to her cleavage than the dress already did on its own. Apparently she’d spent all that time on her hair, because it was braided into an extremely elaborate style that encircled the top of her head like a crown. The entire effect was devastatingly gorgeous.

“What do you think,” she smirked as she held her hands out to the side and spun around once, “worth the wait?”

Din nodded dumbly; his mouth was so dry he couldn’t speak just then. Cara laughed at him, and it was obvious that she knew exactly what effect she was having. The tug of desire within him was expected, but the tight feeling in his chest was perhaps less so. He was going soft. He stood and walked over to her, running his hands lightly down the sides of her arms and trying to keep them from trembling.

“I want to send the right message, after all,” she murmured, her face close to his helmet.

He’d been so overwhelmed by her appearance that he’d temporarily forgotten that they were about to go proposition another man. It was oddly a relief: Din didn’t know if he could take much of this without some other distraction. He pulled back and breathed deeply, trying to steady himself.

“I think it does.”  
  
Cara’s mouth twisted into a small frown as her eyes dropped to his armor. “That’s what you’re wearing?”  
  
Din looked down at himself. He was wearing what he wore every day, because that’s what he had. “You know I don’t wear anything else out in public.”

“Yeah, I know,” she sighed. “It’s just, kind of forboding, you know?”

He did, but there was nothing to do about it. The image of himself in something else—a robe or a suit or something of that formal sort topped off with the helmet—flashed in his mind then and he almost laughed. Mandalorian formal wear was typically your armor, but shinier.

“Oh well, with luck we’ll have it off soon anyway,” Cara said casually, trailing a finger across his breastplate as she sauntered toward the ramp.

Din tried unsuccessfully not to choke on nothing. He bent to pick up the kid in the hopes of covering it, but the smirk on her face when she turned back said he hadn’t succeeded. He paused for a moment to collect himself but she just quirked an eyebrow at him.

“Well, are you coming?” she drawled, grinning wickedly. “Wouldn’t want to be late.”

They were, perhaps, a smidge late when they arrived at Karl’s house. It was larger than Cara’s had been but still more modest than Din might have expected, at least from the outside. It was located in a nice part of the city that he’d never really had cause to go to, and the presence of a Mandalorian on the streets had drawn a lot of pointed stares. Din shrugged it off; more likely it had been the vision walking next to him, anyway.

They knocked, and after a few moments Karl answered the door. He wore an apron over his slacks and shirt, spattered subtly with sauces in a way that said that he was enthusiastic in the kitchen but not _sloppy_. One lock of his blonde hair had escaped where he’d combed it back and flopped down onto his forehead, curling in an unfairly adorable way. Din watched as Karl’s eyes landed first on him and then tracked to Cara, growing impossibly wide as he saw her.

“I, uh— um, you—” Karl stammered, apparently as shocked into speechlessness as Din had been, but still trying to greet them politely. “Er. Hi.”

Cara waited for a second, and Din could practically feel her amusement at the situation. “Aren’t you going to invite us in?”

“O-of course,” their host managed, stepping aside and gesturing for them to enter as he gave his head a small shake, as if trying to clear it. “Do, come in.”  
  
Cara was surely swinging her hips extra suggestively as she walked through the door. Din followed her, and when he stepped in front of Karl he saw a look of something like mild panic on his face. It was quickly covered, though, and he smiled broadly at them as he closed the door.

“I have to say, I didn’t think you could possibly make that dress do more for you, but you have somehow managed it,” he said, looking again at Cara. “I haven’t seen a braid like that since, well…”  
  
“Thanks,” Cara smiled back at him, preening under the praise. “I’m surprised I remembered how, honestly.”

The inside of the house was richly furnished and far more sumptuous than the humble exterior suggested. Art lined the walls and the shelves where there were gaps in the books. Din had never seen so many books in one place, and from what he could see there were volumes in many languages. Idly, he wondered how many Karl spoke. His thoughts were interrupted when the kid struggled in his carrier, eager to be let out, and abruptly Din didn’t know where that was going to be. The house was certainly not designed for children.

“Sorry buddy, I don’t think it’s a good idea to let you loose here,” he told the kid.

“Ah,” Karl said, holding a finger in the air. “I thought of that. I considered pulling everything off low shelves, but I remembered he was a bit of a climber. This room should be safe, though.”

He strode across the room to push open a door. It was a spare bedroom, Din supposed, since it didn’t look occupied enough to be Karl’s own. An array of fluffy pillows had been piled in one corner, and the room purged of anything small and grabbable.

“I don’t have any toys,” Karl apologized, but Din waved it off.

“We brought a few. He loves a pillow fort, though, so I doubt he’ll need them.”

Sure enough, when Din pulled him out of the carrier the kid made a beeline for the pile of pillows. After he dove in happily Din watched him for a moment before leaving him be and returning to the others. He found Cara leaning on the counter in way that showed off all her best assets, knowingly this time. Karl, for his part, had busied himself in the kitchen, paying rather more attention to the pot of food on the stove than Din suspected was necessary.

“Dinner’s almost ready,” he said, glancing over at them. He waved vaguely behind Din. “I brought up another bottle of wine, do you want to open it?”

Din turned and for the first time realized that the table bore a rather unusual setup. Three places had been set, but in front of one a short curtain had been rigged up. Its purpose was obvious; if he sat behind it, he could eat with the others without his back turned, or sitting at another table. His throat felt momentarily tight at the thoughtfulness that had gone into the arrangement. It was rare to find someone outside of the creed who understood what it meant to him so quickly; Cara had been one, and now, against all odds, he’d come across another.

The wine sitting in the center of the table wasn’t Alderaanian this time, which wasn’t too surprising. There couldn’t be too many bottles of that left in the galaxy. Din picked up the bottle and looked at the label, but it was a pointless gesture: he knew nothing about wine. He supposed it would probably be excellent, based on what he knew of their host. There was a corkscrew sitting on the table so he popped the bottle open and gingerly poured some of the ruby liquid into the thin-stemmed wine glasses. It was a far cry from drinking wine out of the squat, ugly cups he kept on the Razor Crest.

When he finished pouring he looked up to see Karl pulling the apron off, three beautifully plated dishes of food sitting on the counter in front of him along with sizeable bowl of meat and veggies. Karl followed his gaze, shrugging as he hung up the apron and picked up the bowl.

“I thought he might like to eat in his fort,” he explained. Din nodded in response, and Karl picked up the bowl and carried into the other room. “Goodness,” Din heard him say, “how did you get those pillows way up there?”

Din peered into the room just in time to see the kid take the bowl of food happily and disappear into his rather elaborate structure. It was at least twice as tall as the kid himself, and several of the pillows seemed to be defying the laws of gravity.

“He’s got his ways,” Din put in, smiling to himself.

Karl looked back at him and cocked an eyebrow, but didn’t inquire further. Leaving the kid to his meal, he crossed back to the kitchen quickly and grabbed their plates. Din and Cara took their seats as Karl delivered the food to the table with a flourish, not trying to conceal the pride he clearly took in his work. It smelled incredible, and even more so when Din removed his helmet and placed it on the table next to him. He could just see Cara’s hands below the bottom of the curtain, gripping her fork tightly in anticipation.

“Please, enjoy,” Karl said invitingly.

At his encouragement Cara tucked into her food with gusto, slicing a chunk off the roast and dragging it through the accompanying sauce. Din was just about to take a bite of his own when he heard a low moan of ecstasy from her that he had become more accustomed to hearing in the bedroom. He smiled and thought maybe she was overselling things a bit for the sake of their intended proposal; that was, until he took his own bite. He was only just able to exercise more self control than Cara had, shutting his eyes as he savored the morsel.

“I, uh, take it you like it,” Karl murmured, and Din could easily picture his wide smile and blushing cheeks.

“I gotta tell you,” Cara said between bites, “I think this is better than what we had at the restaurant.”  
  
“You’re just saying that,” Karl demurred.

“No way,” she insisted. Din could see her waving her fork around enthusiastically. “You are insanely talented.”

“It’s amazing,” Din confirmed.

“Well, thank you,” Karl replied, no doubt blushing again.

They ate mostly in silence, the occasional smattering of conversation growing more frequent and extended as they cleaned their plates. It had been a very long time since Din had eaten with other people, sitting at the same table and conversing over a meal. Even as a kid, his Mandalorian family had eaten separately more often than not. It was strangely exhilarating, a feeling of freedom that he never knew he wanted before this moment, but one he didn’t have to feel guilty about.

“So,” Karl said as they were finishing off the last of their dessert—an unbelievably delicious cake that had Cara not-so-surreptitiously swiping at the crumbs on her plate with her finger, “Are you headed off again soon?” His voice was full of forced nonchalance, as if this was just another casual topic of conversation.

Din had finished his cake so he replaced his helmet and pulled back the curtain so he could better read the situation. Karl was mostly staring into his glass of wine, but his eyes flicked up at them ever so often. It was impossible not to see the tentative hope that was written across his fine features. Din was honestly impressed he was able to pull his eyes away from Cara, who had leaned forward onto the table provocatively. He caught her eye and nodded imperceptibly. They had decided she would make most of the initial moves, and that he would try to remain as unintimidating as possible while clad in all his armor. He slumped back in his chair, leaving one hand resting on the table.

“Well,” she drawled, pouring herself the last of the wine, “we thought we might stay around here for a bit. Do some remote research before we go flying around the galaxy chasing ghosts.”

Karl’s eyes snapped up to them at that, staring like he hadn’t believed what he just heard, and he put his wine glass down slowly. “Oh,” he said carefully. “That sounds like a good idea.”

“Mmm,” Cara hummed, grinning as she took a sip of her wine.

“You’ll have to come over for dinner more often, then.”

Din watched as Cara set down her wine and leaned forward again, affixing Karl with a smoldering, hungry stare. “Is that all?”

Karl swallowed hard, looking at Din before he realized he would be unable to judge the Mandalorian’s reaction and turning his gaze back to Cara. “I—uh, well—I’m—I’m sorry, I—” he stammered, looking entirely flustered.

For a moment Din wondered if they had read the situation wrong, and apparently Cara had the same thought. A tiny crease appeared on her brow, though her lips were still curled into a smile.

“It seemed to us,” she said as she stood slowly and walked over to where Karl sat, “thatthere was something there. Between all of us, back on the ship.” She paused, resting a hand lightly on his shoulder. “Were we wrong?”

Karl tensed at her touch and glanced over at Din again. Beneath his obvious confusion and disbelief there was still that thing that looked like hope. Din gave a small nod, hoping that was the right thing to do, and Karl looked back up at Cara.

“No,” he breathed. “You weren’t wrong.”

Her face broke into a grin, then: it was that earth-shattering one that she reserved for special moments, expertly wielded to bring whoever she trained it on to their knees. Din idly wondered if she fully understood the effect it had on people. Curling her hand into his shirt, Cara pulled him to standing then released her grip and ran her hand down the front of his chest as if trying to smooth away the wrinkles she’d just inflicted. She leaned in close to brush her lips just under his ear.

“Well, then.”

Karl’s eyes slid shut at the contact and he took a deep, shuddery breath, his lips slightly parted. The memory of their feel on his own unleashed a fierce coil of desire in Din’s gut and he stood, walking over to stand behind Karl and placing his hands lightly on the top of other man’s hips. He watched Karl’s long eyelashes as his eyes fluttered open again and he turned his head to look back.

“What about, um, the kid?” Karl whispered, eyes darting toward the door of the other room.

With some reluctance Din left them and checked on the kid, who was snoring soundly in his pillow fort. He smiled and pulled the door shut behind him. When he turned back Cara was looking at him expectantly, and he nodded.

“He’ll be out for the night.”

Cara’s lips curled mischeviously. “Perfect.”

Karl let out a small unexpected yelp as she turned him quickly and began pushing him to the bedroom, and Din had to laugh at the sight. He’d learned quickly that once you gave Cara permission to have what she wants, she wasted no time. She turned her head back to shoot him a searing look and he followed quickly after them, pulling pieces of armor off before he even left the living room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you once again for indulging me this. Your comments make me so so happy, and are definitely the reason I keep writing. Much love to you all!
> 
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	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I very nearly wimped out on the smut on this. Originally the work wasn't going to have any at all. I struggled for a long time with making it work for me, and then suddenly the other day I apparently figured it out. So, for those of you who were hoping for it, I hope you enjoy. It's... pretty explicit. 😆

They were whispering when he entered the room. Or rather, Cara was leaning in close to Karl and whispering something that was making the other man blush fiercely, his eyes going wide with surprise and what was unmistakably delight as he glanced back at the Mandalorian. He nodded slowly, never breaking his gaze away, and suddenly Din didn’t know how to feel. When they’d talked about bringing a third person into their lives, it had not been with the understanding that Cara would ensnare him in her plots. He should have known better.

Grinning wolfishly, Cara sauntered across the room toward an armchair in the corner. Before Din could ask what she thought she was doing and wouldn’t the bed be a better option, she pulled down the straps of her dress and peeled it off in one fell swoop, leaving it in a pile on the floor. Din had not realized that she wasn’t wearing anything underneath it, and the knowledge sent a fierce tug of desire off in his gut. Her hips swung lasciviously as she took the remaining steps to the chair, where she turned around and looked at them expectantly.

With a monumental effort Din tore his eyes away from her naked form and glanced the man standing next to him. He knew their expressions weren’t that different, although Karl didn’t have the benefit of a helmet. Din had been under the impression that Karl might have known was was going on, given the whispering, but he looked just as surprised by this turn of events as Din. To be fair, there was no universe in which a suddenly naked Cara Dune would not elicit such a reaction from just about anyone.

Cara raised her eyebrows at them and pursed her lips. “Uh, boys? You’ve both seen me naked before. Get on with it already?” With that she dropped into the chair, crossing her legs primly like she was in someone’s sitting room.

Din looked at Karl again, wondering what ‘it’ was that they were supposed to be getting on with. After a moment Karl seemed to remember whatever task she’d given him and he turned toward Din with a knowing smile.

“What’s—” Din said, but the question was cut off as Karl pushed him eagerly backwards. His calves hit the bed and he sat down involuntarily.

Without a word, Karl leaned forward and nuzzled his head in between Din’s helmet and his shoulder, his lips quickly finding the exposed skin there. An almost tentative brush of the lips was followed bolder movements, a drag of teeth and the swipe of a tongue. Din exhaled heavily at the sensation, sending an eruption of static through his modulator. At once Karl’s hands were on the move, lifting the edge of Din’s shirt to smooth his hands over the skin of his abdomen.

Din didn’t even realize he’d closed his eyes until he felt a weight on his lap as Karl straddled him, pressing their bodies close together. Karl’s arousal was obvious through his thin pants, and he rocked his hips forward to grind against Din’s erection, eliciting a sharp hiss from the Mandalorian. Din wrapped his hands around Karl’s hips to pull him closer, but the encouragement only seemed to make Karl withdraw slightly. If there was a slight whimper when that happened, Din was sure he had no idea who it had come from.

“The lights,” Din gasped as Karl peeled his shirt upward, clearly intent on having it off. It would fit over his helmet, but it seemed like things would be easier if he could just remove the can.

“No,” Karl breathed, but his voice was overwhelmed by Cara’s.

“No way,” she objected, overloud in the small space. “The helmet stays on for this part.”

Forcing his eyes open again, Din looked over to where Cara sat. She was watching them intently, eyes dark with lust fixing him with a smoldering gaze. One of her hands moved brushed her breast lazily, and when he saw a finger flick past a nipple he groaned.

He hardly registered Karl’s careful removal of the shirt. Now that Din’s chest was bare, Karl bent down to put his mouth on him again, sucking a bruise over Din’s collarbone before his lips moved across his chest. Karl’s hips slid backward off his lap and his hands slipped down Din’s waist to the waistband of his pants while his mouth left a trail of searing kisses across his belly. Then Karl paused, and what was about to happen became abundantly clear.

Karl deftly removed Din’s belt and forced his pants over his hips, sending them to join the rest of Din’s clothing on the floor as he knelt between the Mandalorian’s legs. Din watched as Karl’s long fingers traced a light path down his length, unable to keep his hips from jumping at the touch. His breaths were coming in heavy gasps and he squeezed his eyes shut again, hoping to regain some control over himself.

It was not to be, however. A loud groan was ripped from him as Karl’s warm mouth closed around his cock, his tongue swirling around the head. His back arched with pleasure at the feel of Karl’s lips and tongue and the barest scrape of teeth as he worked, swallowing Din down deeply. Din found his hand tangling in Karl’s hair without realizing it, twisting the soft waves around his fingers and pressing into his scalp. Karl moaned at that, and the vibrations shot up through him to pool at the base of his spine. Din was rapidly losing the ability to think clearly, his mind blanked by the heat and wetness and the mere _sound_ of it. His partner was distressingly proficient at this, and Din could feel himself rocketing toward the cliff edge of his climax embarassingly fast.

Opening his eyes to look at Cara was a mistake. She was slumped in the chair now, one leg thrown haphazardly over the armrest. The hand that had previously been teasing her nipple cupped the breast entirely now, her fingers rolling the nipple between them. Her other hand worked steadily between her legs and her head was thrown back, lips parted as she stared at the back of Karl’s head. After a second she caught Din staring and bit down on her lower lip before her face contorted in a gasp of pleasure.

“Karl, I’m—” was all he could get out before he came, clenching the sheets in his fists so hard he felt his knuckles crack. If Karl had been caught off guard he didn’t show it, swallowing easily as Din rode the ebbing waves of his orgasm. When Din had finished, Karl sat back on his haunches and grinned up at him, his face full of the confidence, satisfaction, and smugness of a loth-cat who got the cream.

With a loud exhale that overwhelmed the mic on his helmet, Din fell heavily backwards onto the bed. He had the distinct impression that Cara had laughed at him for that, but the blood rushing in his ears and the harsh sound of his own breathing through his modulator deafened him. His face was on fire and he desperately wanted to pull this damned helmet off his head and get some real air.

A low, muffled moan from the foot of the bed forced him to push himself up on his elbows. Cara had left the chair and pressed herself up against the still-clothed Karl, unbuttoning his shirt with one hand while the other palmed him through his pants. Karl’s long eyelashes fluttered against his cheeks as Cara swallowed his groans with deep, hungry kisses. His hands on her waist were almost tentative, as if he didn’t know that he really had permission to do this, which Din thought was rather at odds with his earlier performance.

Cara divested Karl of the rest of his clothing quickly, and Din felt his cock twitch again as he watched her take him in hand. Now it was his turn to be thankful that the light was still on. He’d spent the last week or so reveling in Cara’s naked form whenever possible, but had only ever gotten a tantilizing preview of Karl that night in the dark. He was lithe and lean, his skin smooth and unmarked by the battle scars that littered Din and Cara’s bodies. The two of them were unfairly beautiful, and all at once Din felt punched by disbelief that this was actually happening.

With one last twist of her wrist Cara pulled away and pushed a surprised Karl bodily toward the bed. He gave a little yelp as he lost his footing and stumbled backwards into Din’s arms. From the look on Cara’s face, this result had been entirely intentional. She leaned over the two of them and pressed her forehead to Din’s helmet for a long moment before she dropped down to mouth the skin behind Karl’s ear. Din slid his hands over Karl’s chest and felt him take a deep, shuddery breath as his head dropped back against Din’s shoulder.

“Be a dear and move into the middle of the bed, will you?” Cara purred, pressing Karl backwards against Din.

He scrambled backwards and Karl followed him, never letting the gap between them grow too large. Cara followed on all fours across the bed, looking every bit of a predatory animal stalking its prey. When they stopped she slid forward to straddle Karl’s lap and pushed forward until his erection was trapped between their bellies, causing Karl to hiss an inhalation between clenched teeth.

Din could feel his own cock hardening again, pressing insistently into Karl’s back and only getting stiffer as Cara began to rock her hips against Karl, providing that beautiful friction. The man in his arms gasped and his hips bucked forward. One of Karl’s hands cupped Cara’s breast and Din covered it with his own, tweaking her nipple just so and eliciting a gutteral moan from her.

As if that was some kind of signal, she lifted her hips and and leaned over Karl’s shoulder to put her lips next to Din’s helmet. The position pressed her breasts into Karl’s face, who simply let out a little satisfied _mmph_.

“Now’s the time for the lights,” she whispered as she glanced behind him.

Din looked over his shoulder to see a switch on the wall near the head of the bed. He could just reach it from where he sat, and when he flipped it the room was plunged into darkness

“Finally,” he sighed, barely audible, as he pulled his helmet off and set it on one of the bedside tables. He could feel Karl’s soft chuckle echoing through his chest, filling him with a delicious warmth.

“Indeed,” Karl hummed. He reached backwards with one arm and Din felt his fingers brush along his neck and tangle into the hair at the base of his neck. He twisted his neck to look up at Din, and his warm, wine-tinged breath caressed Din’s face. The gap between their lips was small and Din closed it, kissing Karl gently.

“All right you two, there’ll be time enough for tender kisses later,” Cara cut in, doing something to Karl that made him gasp out of the kiss.

Pale moonlight filtered into the room from the window, picking out edges and shapes in a soft glow, but most of the bed remained in shadow. He could see the curve of Cara’s waist and hips and reached out to slide his hands along them, holding onto her while she slid down onto Karl’s cock. As she rocked over him she pushed forward and captured Din’s lips with hers, then slid down kiss Karl before she moved to suck and lick and bite his neck.

Karl moaned and arched up against her, pressing his ass against Din’s erection. Dropping his head onto Din's shoulder, he reached one hand back to curl around Din’s neck and pull him down into a desperate, bruising kiss. Din ground his hips forward, seeking friction and pressure, and found it as Cara rode him. He could feel Cara’s movements getting faster, and every time she ground down onto Karl’s lap it sent a blinding burst of pleasure shooting up his spine. He was getting close again, feeling the tension building low in his gut.

Abruptly Karl tensed, going rigid as he cried out. Cara immediately pushed down harder, and Din slid a hand between his partners to rub a finger over her sensitive nub. Once, twice, and then he felt her muscles contract around Karl’s cock as a strangled cry escaped her lips. The sensation pushed him the rest of the way and he came messily all over Karl’s back.

Din only managed a couple of panting breaths before they collapsed backward onto him, crushing him onto the bed. He fell backward with a heavy _oomph_ , feeling the sticky slide of his come across his belly. Instead of moving off of him, Cara pushed further up, trapping Karl between her and Din as she sought his lips for another kiss.

“Mmph, being… crushed… here,” Din groaned against her mouth, and finally she rolled off the top of them, giggling uncontrollably.

Her laughter was infectious, and soon giggles turned into belly laughs as they lay tangled together on the bed; utterly, blissfully, unbelievably happy.

* * *

He awoke to an unexpected sunbeam in his face, a warm body pressed into his side, and a weight on his stomach. Raising his hand to shade his face, Karl blinked blearily in confusion: he was further over in the bed than he usually slept, even when he had company. For a moment he lay there and waited for the amnesia of sleep to slip away before he turned his head to look at the bed’s other occupants. Cara’s dark hair fanned out over his shoulder where she’d tucked her head, partly covering her face. She had one arm slung across him and her bare legs tangled with his. Behind her, he could see outline of Din’s body, his chest pressed to her back and his face buried in her hair. The Mandalorian’s top arm extended across Cara’s waist and came to rest next to hers on Karl’s stomach. Both arms seemed to cradle underneath the small bundle of green and brown that had curled up on top of him.

It didn’t feel like a dream, but it also didn’t seem like it could possibly be real. Slowly, memory of the previous night returned. Of kisses in the dark, and searching hands, and satisfied moans. And then, almost more unbelievably, blissed-out laughter. He smiled to himself, feeling a warmth growing inside him unlike anything he’d felt in a long time. Maybe ever. No, it couldn’t be a dream because even in his wildest dreams he hadn’t dared to hope for this.

The kid stirred and Karl looked down to see large dark eyes staring up at him over a small grin. He wondered idly if the kid did this every morning, and what he made of finding someone else in the bed with his parents. He seemed pleased enough with the arrangement, to Karl’s relief. Karl watched as the kid sat up and yawned dramatically, then shook out his ears. Somehow, his grin got even wider, and he felt like he might burst.

“Mm,” Cara grunted, her arm tightening around Karl now that the kid had moved. “’s morning?”

Karl smiled and lifted a hand to push a lock of hair out of her face. “It’s early,” he murmured, “go back to sleep.”

Her eyes were still closed as her lips curled into a smile and she pressed a soft kiss against his chest. Karl felt his heart stutter and hoped that the sound of it beating against his ribcage wouldn’t disturb her. She didn’t seem to notice.

After a few more minutes the kid had apparently had it with waiting for them to get up and slipped down off Karl’s stomach and then off the bed. Karl watched the top of his head as he toddled off out of the room. Probably he should follow him—who knew what the kid might get up to out there without supervision—but it was beyond difficult to convince himself to leave his partners’ embrace.

Finally, allowing a tiny sigh, he carefully extracted himself from the bed and grabbed his robe. Cara frowned and clutched at the empty space, but didn’t wake. With one last look of longing at the bed, Karl padded out toward the kitchen.

He didn’t see the kid at first, and frowned slightly as he wondered where he could have gone. He didn’t appear to be in the kitchen, or under the couch, or in the bathroom. It wasn’t until he poked his head into the guest bedroom that he realized that he should have checked there first: the kid was happily ensconced in his fort, playing quietly with a small stuffed bantha.

“I still don’t know how you managed this,” Karl murmured, glancing around at the pillow fort. The kid looked up at him and cooed happily in response. “I’m sure I don’t have to ask you twice if you’re ready for breakfast.” At that the kid dropped the toy and reached up toward him, so Karl bent down to pick him up and carried him into the kitchen.

He hadn’t exactly been planning on hosting a breakfast as well, but he had the fixings for something simple and tasty. Putting on a pot of caf, he gave the kid a bowl of leftovers while he cooked. He didn’t know how much time had passed when Din emerged from the bedroom; Karl had been humming to himself while he cooked, swinging his hips to a melody in his head, and, perhaps predictably, the Mandalorian had snuck up behind him.

“Mmm, smells good,” he said, placing a hand on Karl’s hip as he leaned against his back to look into the pot.

Karl jumped and twisted his head back to smile at Din, shaking his head slightly. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re quite sneaky?”

“Might have come up before,” Din replied, tipping his helmet slightly. “I can never sneak up on Cara,” he added, almost absently.

“I don’t exactly have a warrior’s instincts.” Karl looked back down into his pot, trying to ignore a tightness in his chest. Of course he didn’t, and what use would two of the most impressive warriors in the galaxy have for someone like him? Maybe as a babysitter, he thought bitterly before he could chase it away.

Din seemed to sense the downward spiral of his thoughts. “Hey,” he said quietly, applying gentle pressure to Karl’s hip to get him to turn around. They were standing so close, and Karl’s senses were overwhelmed with the scent of beskar and sweat and the faint, lingering tang of sex. “That’s one of the things that’s wonderful about you,” Din murmured, then looked down at the ground like he’d said too much.

Karl didn’t quite know what to say to that, but apparently Din wasn’t done. He took a deep breath. “I’ve spent almost my whole life surrounded by warriors. It’s all I’ve ever known. I never thought I needed anything else… _wanted_ anything else… until I met you. I know Cara feels the same. You’re good for us.”

“Oh,” Karl breathed. The tightness in his chest had a completely different cause now. “That’s, uh, good to hear.” He mentally kicked himself. _Good job, really eloquent._

“You guys look like you’re about to bang again,” Cara said through a yawn, and this time they both jumped. She grinned wickedly at them, and Karl felt his face go hot. She’d apparently found one of his spare robes, and he remembered dimly that she’d been wearing the dress and nothing else the previous evening.

Before anything else could be said the pan behind him hissed and he whipped around to grab it. Cara fished a trio of mugs out of his cabinet and carried them over to the pot of caf. Din moved off to check on the kid, who sat on the table nearby, wolfing down the leftovers. The moment was broken, but its effects lingered on as a fluttery feeling in Karl’s chest as he finished up his cooking.

They ate over companionable conversation that fortunately did not include a discussoin of what, if any, future there might be for the three of them. The idea gnawed at him, though, moreso than it had done the previous day or night. Now that he knew exactly what he stood to lose, he couldn’t quite suppress the mild terror that seemed to have made its home in his gut.

“You look concerned, Karl,” Cara said as she sipped her caf. “What’s up.”

He looked up at her, cursing internally. Apparently he’d let those feelings show, though he’d been trying not to. “Oh, ah, its nothing.” He shook his head and looked down at his plate again. He wasn’t going to get off that easy, though. They were both staring at him when he raised his eyes again. He tried to paste on an easy smile, but knew it fell flat.

“I, uh,” he stammered, trying to figure out what to say. “How long were you planning on staying around?” he asked, as casually as he could.

Cara and Din looked at each other, then back at him. “Is this about logistics?” Cara asked, raising her eyebrows at him.

“Logistics?” Karl parrotted back, uncomprehending. He couldn’t help but think they were misunderstanding him, because how could they look so nonchalant otherwise? He might have thought they were only interested in a fun romp, but that didn’t really track with what Din had said earlier.

“Yeah,” Cara said, sitting back in her chair. “You’re worried because you have a life here, and we spend a lot of time in other parts of the galaxy. Am I wrong?”

Karl blinked at her. “No, that’s—that’s pretty much it.”

She shrugged, and he might have felt his heart fall into his gut if not for the tiny smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “We figured it out already.”

“You… what?” Karl said, trying not to gape at them. This could _not_ be real.

“We talked about it, while we were away. We wouldn’t have done this,” she said, gesturing around in a circle between them, “if we hadn’t thought we could make it work. You can come with us when you want, and we’ll spend more time in Nevarro.”

“You asked me, before, where was home for me, and I said Nevarro might have been in the past. It could actually be. Home, I mean,” Din put in. He looked off in the distance. “It’s easier to be out there if you have someplace… someone to come home to.”

Karl couldn’t believe what he was hearing. If he was being honest with himself, if anyone else had said something like that after one night, he might have politely sent them on their way and never called them again. But this wasn’t just one night, not really. He felt like he’d known them for years, felt a level of comfort with them that was rarely found. Whatever this was, it felt completely different; never before had he wanted something so badly.

Saying even a part of that seemed like too much, though. “I… don’t know what to say,” he replied instead.

“Say that you think it works. That you want to try this,” Cara suggested as she leaned forward, watching him closely. “Or, if this is all too fast, feel free to tell us to kriff off.”

“No,” Karl said, too quickly, eliciting a raised eyebrow from Cara. “It works. I want this.”

A wide smile spread over Cara’s face, then, radiant like the sun and just as warming. “Perfect.”

As if he sensed something momentous had taken place, the kid peeked out his pillow fort and chirrupped softly, his ears perked up.

“I hope you realize that that’s his room now,” Cara said wryly.

Karl looked at the kid and smiled, feeling light like he had not in a very long time. “Of course it is. I think he knew before we did.”

Din chuckled at that, shaking his head slightly. “He usually does.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you thank you thank you for humoring me on this, thanks for your kudos, and a special thanks to everyone who has left a comment. If you enjoyed this I would love to hear from you! I've already got more things in the works, but nothing motivates better than hearing people like your stuff. 😊


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